ANXIETY IN GERIATRIC DEPRESSION - EFFECTS OF AGE AND COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

The authors investigated the occurrence of anxiety, symptomatology in a clinical sample of geriatric depressed patients and examined the eff ect of age and cognitive impairment on the experience of anxiety sympt oms. Subjects were psychiatric patients consecutively admitted to a lo ngitudinal study of geriatric depression. Severity of depression, anti depressant treatment, cognitive impairment, medical illness, social su pport, and physical environment were systematically assessed at entry and approximately every 6 months afterwards. Symptoms of anxiety and p hobic anxiety were similar in older (n = 52) and younger (n = 15) subj ects, although older subjects had significantly lower scores of subjec tively experienced depression, interpersonal sensitivity,, anger, host ility, and psychoticism. Older depressed patients with cognitive impai rment corresponding to mild or moderate dementia had less anxiety than geriatric depressed patients without dementia. Findings of this study suggest the absence of an age effect on the expression of anxiety dur ing depressive states. Although there is no age effect on anxiety, mil d-to-moderate dementia appears to be associated with lower anxiety.