Cognitive impairment and depression

Abstract

The commonality of cognitive impairment and depression is discussed. Cognitive symptoms are the main symptoms of depressive disorder and, most often, it is cognitive impairment that reduces the performance and quality of life of depressed patients. The most common cognitive disorders in depressed patients are: attention deficit (both visual and auditory), decrease in the level of short-term and operative memory, difficulties in processing information of any modality, a decrease in the speed of information processing, as well as difficulties in building an activity program and monitoring her execution. A cognitive symptom that requires further discussion is the so-called cognitive distortion – a shift in focus from positive to negative stimuli, as well as incorrect reactions to negative feedback and decision making. A depressive episode develops against the background of dysmetabolic and dysfunctional cerebral changes in the amygdala, cingulate cortex, hippocampus, orbitofrontal and mediobasal frontal cortex. Cognitive impairment in patients who have had depression persists after recovery from depression; according to the figurative expression adopted in the scientific community of specialists studying cognitive impairment in depression, each depressive episode forms permanent “cognitive scars”. Presumably, cognitive dysfunction may be one of the risk factors for the development of a depressive disorder; depression, in turn, is a risk factor for the development of dementia, including in Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease: studies have shown that the transformation of severe cognitive impairment associated with depression into dementia in elderly patients can reach 70% in five years. The undoubted commonality of depression and cognitive dysfunction is emphasized by the frequency of depression in patients with cognitive impairment.