Abstract

FERNANDES LOPES, Regina Maria; WELTER WENDT, Guilherme; FERNANDES LOPES DO NASCIMENTO, Roberta  and  DE LIMA ARGIMON, Irani I.. Correlations between anxiety and depression in the cognitive performance of elderly adults. Divers.: Perspect. Psicol. [online]. 2014, vol.10, n.1, pp.143-150. ISSN 1794-9998.

Over time, the human body goes through a natural aging process, leading to functional changes, reducing vitality and fostering the emergence of diseases related to life span. The main risk factors for the development of depression in the elderly include genetics, stressful events, age-related cognitive deterioration and neurobiological abnormalities, with prevalence rates of major depressive disorder in the elderly range from 2% to 5%. Elderly people with depressive and anxiety symptoms had more severe cognitive deficits. The aim of this study is to ascertain whether there is significant correlation between the cognitive performance of elderly patients with symptoms of depression, anxiety and age. 231 seniors participated in this study. The design was a quantitative cross-sectional study and. We used the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The results showed that age correlated statistically significantly and negatively with the MMSE score (r =-0.205, p <0.005), which shows that age reduced cognitive performance. Older people with depressive symptoms and more severe symptoms of anxiety had lower scores on the MMSE.

Keywords : Elderly; depression; cognitive impairment; MMSE; GDS; BAI.

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