Anosognosia and Alzheimer's disease: The role of depressive symptoms in mediating impaired insight

The relation between anosognosia and dementia severity in Alzheimer's disea se (AD) has been unclear. We constructed a measure that quantified the diff erence between the perceptions of deficits of patients with AD (n = 23) and ratings from a knowledgeable informant as a measure of anosognosia. There was no correlation between dementia severity and anosognosia. However, deme ntia severity was positively correlated with the degree of anosognosia afte r controlling for depressive symptomatology (p =.03). Post-hoc analyses, al so controlling for depressive symptoms, indicated that higher levels of ano sognosia were associated with lower performance on specific cognitive tasks . These results suggest depressive symptoms may confound the relationship b etween anosognosia and dementia severity.