Rates of Depression in Individuals With Pathologic But Not Clinical Alzheimer Disease are Lower Than Those in Individuals Without the Disease: Findings From the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging (BLSA)
Alzheimer disease (AD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease and the most common cause of dementia. Over 4.5 million people have AD, a number that is expected to triple as the population ages, creating a major public health burden. Furthermore, AD is a psychiatric disease, as 90% of AD patients also have noncognitive psychiatric symptoms such as agitation, delusions, and hallucinations. Major depression, with a prevalence rate of 24%, is one of the most common psychiatric syndromes observed in AD. Because this is a much higher prevalence than the rate found in a comparable population without dementia (7%), numerous studies have investigated the basis of the association between AD and depression.
