Biological psychiatry
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Biological psychiatry · Aug 2005
Comparative Study Clinical TrialExecutive dysfunction and the course of geriatric depression.
Executive dysfunction is common in geriatric depression and persists after improvement of depressive symptoms. This study examined the relationship of executive impairment to the course of depressive symptoms among elderly patients with major depression. ⋯ Executive dysfunction increases the risk for poor response of geriatric depression to citalopram. Because executive functions require frontostriatal-limbic integrity, this observation provides the rationale for investigation of the role of specific frontostriatal-limbic pathways in perpetuating geriatric depression. Depressed elderly patients with executive dysfunction require vigilant clinical attention because they might be at risk to fail treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibiting antidepressant.