Gender differences in the association of dementia and depression

TL;DR

This paper explores whether depression is more common in women diagnosed with dementia and finds a significant gender difference.

Contribution

The study provides new evidence that depression at dementia diagnosis is more frequent in women.

Findings

Depression at dementia diagnosis is more common in women according to a statistically significant t-test (p=0.02).

The mean age of participants in the study was 71 years.

Abstract

The evolution of depression and dementia has been shown to differ in some studies. For example, a history of recent depression has been found to be associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in women (Kim et al., 2021).

We will use data collected from several dementia studies to analyze whether the presence of depression at diagnosis is more frequent in women.

We conducted a systematic search for articles analyzing the presence of depression in patients with a diagnosis of dementia. We analyzed by Student’s t test the presence of depression according to sex, considering the alternative hypothesis that there is more depression in female than male patients.

The mean age of the sample was 71 years. We obtained a statistically significant Student’s t test (p=0.02).

The approach and approach to depression in the elderly as a risk factor could be different according to sex. For example, some studies have proposed the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause as a possible protective factor for the subsequent development of dementia (Kim et al., 2022). Further studies are recommended in this regard.

None Declared