[Depressive symptoms in Alzheimer's disease: preliminary results of the REAL.FR study].

UNLABELLED: The Alzheimer's disease (AD) is today regarded as a degenerative pathology with a serious and common complication: occurrence of mental and behavioral disturbances. Among this neuropsychiatrics symptoms, the depressive symptoms occupy a significant place by their frequency and their consequences on the caregiver's burden. The prevalence of such disorders is very variously appreciated in the literature.

OBJECTIVE: To assess with precision depressive symptoms in a population with Alzheimer's disease rated on neuropsychiatric inventory NPI.

METHOD: Cross-sectional study of patients with AD presenting at the consultation of psycho-geriatic, geriatric or neurologic services in 16 french university hospitals. The frequency of the depression was evaluated with the NPI on a population of 578 subjects with AD. We studied the association existing between these symptoms and the antecedents of depression and we studied the gravity of these disorders according to the cognitive status.

RESULTS: Caregivers describe less one depressive symptom for approximately 40% of the subjects included in the study n = 229. The average score of gravity is close to 4 and is thus clinically significant. More the stage of dementia is severe more the number of subjects presenting a clinically significant score is important. Scores of depression evolve parallel to the stage of dementia. The antecedents of depression are a risk factor for depressive symptoms in the AD p < 0.001.

DISCUSSION: These results confirm those of primary studies. In our study, more than the prevalence of depressive symptoms it seems that is the severity of the disorder which is associated with the dementia severity. The continuation of this work will allow a prospective evaluation of depressive symptoms in the AD.