Depression Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Depression, including details on clinical depression, medication, symptoms, treatment, counselling, therapy.

The clock drawing test as a measure of executive dysfunction in elderly depressed patients.

Woo BK, Rice VA, Legendre SA, Salmon DP, Jeste DV, Sewell DD

University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.

The aims of this research were to determine whether performance on the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) could accurately distinguish between older patients with depression and older patients with depression and previously undocumented executive dysfunction and to determine if there was a correlation between CDT and depression severity. The authors studied 52 patients consecutively admitted to a geriatric psychiatry inpatient unit of a university hospital who met DSM-IV criteria for major depression or depression not otherwise specified but had no concurrent diagnosis of dementia. All the subjects completed the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS), and the CDT, as well as the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The patients were divided into 2 subgroups based on the DRS score: <129 (cognitive impairment) versus = 129. Results indicated that the depressed patients with a score of DRS <129 had significantly lower CDT scores than did patients with DRS = 129 and normal comparison subjects (P< .01). The results support the hypothesis that CDT score is lower in elderly depressed patients with executive dysfunction versus nondepressed seniors as well as depressed patients without executive dysfunction.

Published 9 November 2004 in J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol, 17(4): 190-4.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Depression Research Today. All Rights Reserved.