The relationship between depressive symptoms and four cognitive constructs
Open Access
- Author:
- Doyle, Cassidy
- Area of Honors:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Alyssa Ann Gamaldo, Thesis Supervisor
Alyssa Ann Gamaldo, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Depressive symptoms
Depression
Cognition
Memory
Older adults
processing speed
executive function
subjective memory - Abstract:
- Many studies on depression and cognition are restricted to small, clinical samples. Using baseline data from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE), this study utilized a large, community-dwelling sample of older adults to investigate the relationship between depressive symptoms and four cognitive constructs: processing speed, reasoning, memory, and subjective memory (n=2694). The study aims were to (1) examine the associations between depressive symptoms and each of the constructs, (2) assess these relationships after accounting for age, gender, race, and education covariates, and (3) investigate the relationship between objective memory scores and subjective memory reports. Age, race, gender, and education were established as covariates based on past literature. Results indicated that fewer depressive symptoms were weakly associated with better performance in all cognitive domains. This relationship remained after adjusting for covariates. Younger age, being a woman, White race, and higher education also predicted lower depressive symptoms, better reasoning performance, better memory performance and better subjective memory scores. Younger age, White race, and higher education predicted processing speed performance while gender did not. Objective memory and subjective memory scores are weakly correlated. These findings indicate that depressive symptoms are an important consideration when assessing cognition in healthy older adults.