Psychological Symptoms Often Precede Dementia Caused by Alzehimer’s

iStock/Thinkstock(ST. LOUIS) — Depression, anxiety and agitation may be signs that people aged 50 and older are on the verge of experiencing the mind-robbing effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Washington University School of Medicine researchers say that while it’s already known that behavioral or psychological symptoms accompany the disease, the new study finds that these problems can appear before dementia actually sets in.

Lead author Catherine Roe and her team analyzed more than 2,400 people who were patients at an Alzheimer’s center. Eventually, half of them developed cognitive problems associated with the illness.

Interestingly, those diagnosed with dementia were twice as likely to experience depression and 12 times more likely to have delusions than those without cognitive problems.

One important footnote, according to Roe, is that scientists still don’t know if the depression is brought on by Alzheimer’s or whether it’s caused by underlying changes in the brain.

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