A study of cerebrovascular risk factors in depressive patients in old age

Context: Depression in late life is more likely to be associated with multiple medical comorbidities and cognitive impairment. In old-age hypertension, hyperlipidemia and obesity have been associated with cognitive impairment and vascular depression. The severity of vascular burden has a positive correlation with the severity of depression. Aims: This study aimed to find the association between cerebrovascular risk factors (CVRFs) and depression in old age. Methodology: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out at the outpatient department (OPD) of psychiatric center, SMS Medical College and Hospital, Jaipur. The patients from the OPD who provided informed consent were the participants in this study. Two hundred cases of depressive episode or recurrent depressive episode (unipolar depression) were included in the study. The diagnosis was made as per the International Classification of Diseases-10 criteria by two psychiatrists independently. Framingham CVRF prediction tool was applied to assess vascular burden. This was followed by statistical analysis. Results: The mean age of participants were 68.53 years, the mean score of Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was 19.10 and the mean score of CVRFs was 13.13. HAM-D score positively correlates with CVRFs score (r = 0.188 and P = 0.008). Conclusions: Our study contributes to the growing literature elucidating the relationship of CVRFs in depressed older adults confirming that greater vascular burden can contribute to the severity of depression in geriatric depression.