Executive dysfunction and depressive symptoms in cerebrovascular disease
- G Bellelli1,
- E Lucchi1,
- G Cipriani2,
- G B Frisoni3,
- M Trabucchi4
- 1“Ancelle della Carità” Hospital, Cremona, and Geriatric Research Group, Brescia, Italy
- 2Geriatric Research Group, Brescia, Italy
- 3Laboratory of Epidemiology and Neuroimaging IRCCS “San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli”, Brescia, and Geriatric Research Group, Brescia, Italy
- 4Geriatric Research Group, Brescia, and University “Tor Vergata”, Roma, Italy
- Correspondence to: Dr G Bellelli, “Ancelle della Carità” Hospital, via Aselli 14, 26100 Cremona, Italy; bellelli-giuseppe{at}poliambulanza.it
- executive dysfunction
- depressive symptoms
- cerebrovascular disease
- executive dysfunction
- depressive symptoms
- cerebrovascular disease
The article by Kramer et al1 suggests that subcortical ischaemic vascular disease is associated with subtle declines in executive functioning and visual memory, even in non-demented patients. The authors compared 27 control subjects and 12 non-demented patients, who were selected after exclusion of major depression, bipolar affective disorder, and other DSM-IV I axis disorders. We wish to contribute with personal data to this topic suggesting that, even in absence of a clinical diagnosis of depression, depressive symptoms may modulate executive dysfunctions in non-demented subjects with cerebrovascular disease.
We examined 34 consecutive patients with cognitive impairment-no dementia (CI-ND) (mean (SD), age: 78.1 (6.3), range 65–90; years of education: 4.9 (1.7), range 3–10; Mini Mental State Examination score: 24.0 (2.4), range 18–27). The diagnosis of CI-ND was made on the basis of a standardised multidimensional protocol including history, clinical examination, detailed neuropsychological testing, and computed tomography. The presence and severity of cortical, white matter, and deep subcortical lesions and of leukoaraiosis were assessed on computed …
