Depression and Memory Decline in the Elderly

Objective: To analyze the memory performance of participants aged 60 years and older with and without depressive symptoms.Methods: 199 participants were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) with a cut-off point of 20 for depression.Of these, 22 met the criteria for depression group; the remaining participants were allocated to the non-depression group.The Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) was used to assess verbal learning, fi gures I and II of the Visual Reproduction subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale Revised (WMS-R) was used to evaluate immediate and delayed visual memory, and the Logical Memory subtests I and II of WMS-R were used to test verbal memory.Results: The average scores for verbal learning in the depression group were signifi cantly lower than those in the non-depression group (p = .001).There were no group differences on visual and logical memory I and II scales.Conclusion: Depressive symptoms affect information retention and verbal learning in the elderly.However, they had no effect on visual and logical memory processing in this sample.The results suggest that, in addition to age-related cognitive decline, depression impairs memory performance considerably.