Folate and vitamin B12 insufficiencies have been associated with increased risk of depression. This systematic review aimed to clarify if, compared with placebo, treatment with folate and/or vitamin B12 reduces depression scale scores, increases remission, and prevents the onset of clinically significant symptoms of depression in people at risk.

This systematic review searched the PubMed, PsychInfo, Embase, and Cochrane databases from inception to 6 June 2014, using the following terms and strategy: (vitamin B12 or vitamin B9 or folate or folic acid or cobalamin or cyanocobalamin) and (depression or depressive disorder or depressive symptoms) and (randomized controlled trial or RCT). The electronic search was supplemented by manual search. Two independent reviewers assessed all papers retrieved for eligibility and bias, and extracted crude data. Review Manager 5 was used to manage and analyze the data.

Two hundred and sixty-nine manuscripts were identified, of which 52 were RCTs and 11 fulfilled criteria for review. We found that the short-term use of vitamins (days to a few weeks) does not contribute to improve depressive symptoms in adults with major depression treated with antidepressants (5 studies, standardized mean difference = −0.12, 95% confidence interval – 95% CI = −0.45, 0.22), but more prolonged consumption (several weeks to years) may decrease the risk of relapse (1 study, odds ratio (OR) = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.12, 0.94) and the onset of clinically significant symptoms in people at risk (2 studies, risk ratio = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.43, 0.98).

The number of available trials remains small and heterogeneity between studies high. The results of these meta-analyses suggest that treatment with folate and vitamin B12 does not decrease the severity of depressive symptoms over a short period of time, but may be helpful in the long-term management of special populations.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) often occur in patients with dementia. Understanding the course of NPS in dementia is important for healthcare professionals for psycho-educational purposes and adequate and timely interventions to prevent or diminish NPS as much as possible.

We conducted a systematic literature search in several electronic databases. We combined search strings for the terms dementia, community-dwelling, cohort studies and NPS. Screening titles and abstracts, assessing the methodological quality and data-extraction were independently conducted by at least two authors.

This literature search revealed 6605 unique records of which 23 studies were included in data synthesis. In total 7184 patients participated in the included studies with a mean number of 312. Sixty percent of the participants were female and the mean age of all participants was 74.8 years. Follow-up varied between 1 and 6 years; in 17 studies loss to follow-up was less than 20% per year. NPS are highly prevalent, incident and persistent although frequency parameters vary considerably across studies. Delusions/delusional misidentification, wandering/agitation, aberrant motor behavior/motor hyperactivity and apathy are the most common NPS. For hallucinations, delusions/delusional misidentification, paranoia, aggression, wandering/agitation, aberrant motor behavior/motor hyperactivity, disinhibition, apathy, and sleep disturbance increasing trends in point prevalence rates have been found.

NPS in community-dwelling patients are frequent and persistent. The increasing trends of several NPS in the course of dementia require a preventive approach of professional caretakers. For such an approach, a timely diagnosis and adequate professional support to prevent or diminish these problems is necessary.

The Geriatric Anxiety Inventory is a 20-item geriatric-specific measure of anxiety severity. While studies suggest good internal consistency and convergent validity, divergent validity from measures of depression are weak. Clinical cutoffs have been developed that vary across studies due to the small clinical samples used. A six-item short form (GAI-SF) has been developed, and while this scale is promising, the research assessing the psychometrics of this scale is limited.

This study examined the psychometric properties of GAI and GAI-SF in a large sample of 197 clinical geriatric participants with a comorbid anxiety and unipolar mood disorder, and a non-clinical control sample (N = 59).

The internal consistency and convergent validity with other measures of anxiety was adequate for GAI and GAI-SF. Divergent validity from depressive symptoms was good in the clinical sample but weak in the total and non-clinical samples. Divergent validity from cognitive functioning was good in all samples. The one-factor structure was replicated for both measures. Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses indicated that the GAI is more accurate at identifying clinical status than the GAI-SF, although the sensitivity and specificity for the recommended cutoffs was adequate for both measures.

Both GAI and GAI-SF show good psychometric properties for identifying geriatric anxiety. The GAI-SF may be a useful alternative screening measure for identifying anxiety in older adults.

Assessing anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been a recent focus, and a number of studies have extensively investigated the validity of anxiety rating scales in PD. The present review aims to provide an overview of anxiety scales widely used and/or validated in PD, and to highlight recommendations for future research required in this area.

A literature search was performed using terms such as Parkinson* disease, psychiatric, depress*, anxiety, assessment, scales, and valid* in PsycInfo, PubMed, and Web of Science databases. Validation studies and reviews focussed on assessment of anxiety in PD were included.

The literature search identified nine anxiety rating scales. The new Parkinson's Anxiety Scale (PAS) showed good psychometric properties. Having a simple design appropriate for older adults and items focussed on cognitive anxiety, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) also appeared promising for use in PD. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) did not demonstrate satisfactory psychometric characteristics when used in PD, while other scales had limited or no evidence of validity or reliability to infer judgments.

PAS and GAI are can be recommended for use in PD without dementia. Usefulness of these scales to assess anxiety in dementia should be examined in the future. Moreover, the complex symptomatology of anxiety relating to “off” PD medication states were not addressed in these scales. Further research is required to develop an anxiety scale tailored for PD.

Physical health has been demonstrated to mediate the mental health and mortality risk association. The current study examines an alternative hypothesis that mental health mediates the effect of physical health on mortality risk.

Participants (N = 14,019; women = 91%), including eventual decedents (n = 3,752), were aged 70 years and older, and drawn from the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project. Participants were observed on two to four occasions, over a 10-year period. Mediation analysis compared the converse mediation of physical and mental health on mortality risk.

For men, neither physical nor mental health was associated with mortality risk. For women, poor mental health reported only a small effect on mortality risk (Hazard Risk (HR) = 1.01; p < 0.001); more substantive was the risk of low physical health (HR = 1.04; p < 0.001). No mediation effects were observed.

Mental health effects on mortality were fully attenuated by physical health in men, and partially so in women. Neither mental nor physical health mediated the effect of each other on mortality risk for either gender. We conclude that physical health is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than mental health.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms are major determinants for caregiver distress and institutionalization in dementia. Little is known about the prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms and their association with use of medication, caregiver distress, and resource utilization in primary care.

We assessed frequency of neuropsychiatric symptoms in a sample retrieved from a primary care intervention study. Patients were screened for dementia by their primary care physicians. A study nurse assessed neuropsychiatric symptoms in 176 patients using the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) through face-to-face interviews by proxy during home visits. In addition, data on global cognition (MMSE), quality of life (QoL-AD), resource utilization in dementia (RUD), caregiver distress (BIS), and use of psychotropic medication in patients were obtained. We used linear mixed effect models taking into account the clustering of patients within general physician practices.

Clinically relevant neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPI score ≥ 4) occurred in about 53% of the patients. Higher NPI scores were significantly associated with more severe cognitive impairment, higher caregiver distress, and higher utilization of caregiver resources by patients but not with a formal diagnosis of dementia from the primary care physician. Use of antipsychotics was associated with higher NPI scores, particularly in non-psychotic domains.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms in a primary care cohort screened positive for dementia were associated with resource utilization and distress of caregivers. In contrast to guideline recommendations, the use of antipsychotics was associated with non-psychotic domains of behavioral symptoms. These findings underscore the relevance of neuropsychiatric symptoms for the design of future interventions in primary care.

Cognitive reserve (CR) is a protective factor that supports cognition by increasing the resilience of an individual's cognitive function to the deleterious effects of cerebral lesions. A single environmental proxy indicator is often used to estimate CR (e.g. education), possibly resulting in a loss of the accuracy and predictive power of the investigation. Furthermore, while estimates of an individual's prior CR can be made, no operational measure exists to estimate dynamic change in CR resulting from exposure to new life experiences.

We aimed to develop two latent measures of CR through factor analysis: prior and current, in a sample of 467 healthy older adults.

The prior CR measure combined proxy measures traditionally associated with CR, while the current CR measure combined variables that had the potential to reflect dynamic change in CR due to new life experiences. Our main finding was that the analyses uncovered latent variables in hypothesized prior and current models of CR.

The prior CR model supports multivariate estimation of pre-existing CR and may be applied to more accurately estimate CR in the absence of neuropathological data. The current CR model may be applied to evaluate and explore the potential benefits of CR-based interventions prior to dementia onset.

We aimed to examine trends in the use of psychotropic medications among elderly outpatients with dementia in Japan between 2002 and 2010.

We used data from the 2002–2010 Survey of Medical Care Activities in Public Health Insurance (SMCA-PHI), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of claims data for the month of June in every year. We included ambulatory care visits by patients aged 65 years or older who were prescribed cholinesterase inhibitors (n = 15,591), and identified use of any psychotropic medications during the survey month.

In 2008–2010, the most prevalently prescribed psychotropic medications to patients with dementia were sedatives-hypnotics (37.5%), antipsychotics (24.9%), antidepressants (13.0%), and mood-stabilizers (2.9%). Between 2002–2004 and 2008–2010, use of second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) increased from 5.0% to 12.0%, while use of first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) decreased from 20.6% to 12.9%. These numbers resulted in a 1.1-fold increase in the adjusted prevalence of the overall use of antipsychotics. Quetiapine and risperidone use showed a 4.8- and 1.8-fold increase, respectively, while haloperidol use showed a 2.3-fold decrease.

Despite safety warnings against the use of antipsychotics for patients with dementia in several countries, our study revealed a slight increase in the extensive use of off-label antipsychotics over time in Japan. This finding indicates an urgent need for evaluation of the efficacy of antipsychotics for the approved treatment of severe agitation, aggression, and psychosis associated with dementia. Moreover, psychosocial interventions and antipsychotic withdrawal strategies are needed in order to reduce the overall prevalence of antipsychotic use.

Research illustrates cognitive deficits in children and younger adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Few studies have focused on the cognitive functioning in older adults. This study investigates the association between ADHD and cognitive functioning in older adults.

Data were collected in a cross-sectional side study of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA). A diagnostic interview to diagnose ADHD was administered among a subsample (N = 231, age 60–94). ADHD symptoms and diagnosis were assessed with the Diagnostic Interview for ADHD in Adults (DIVA) 2.0. Cognitive functioning was assessed with tests in the domains of executive functioning, information processing speed, memory, and attention/working memory.

Regression analyses indicate that ADHD diagnosis and ADHD severity were only negatively associated with cognitive functioning in the attention/working memory domain. When adjusting for depression, these associations were no longer significant.

The study shows that ADHD in older adults is associated with lower cognitive functioning in the attention/working memory domain. However, this was partly explained by depressive symptoms.

The Brief Cognitive Status Exam (BCSE) is a new, optional subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale-IV (WMS-IV) developed for rapid detection of cognitive deficits. We examined the clinical validation of the Dutch version of the BCSE in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia, comparing it to the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

BCSE and MMSE were administered in 39 older adults with MCI, 51 with dementia and 96 matched healthy controls.

Our results show that the BCSE is a valid screening instrument, with psychometric properties similar to the widely used MMSE. High correlations were found between the BCSE and MMSE (r = 0.79, n = 183, p < 0.001). Furthermore, a BCSE cut-off score ≤ 42 revealed a sensitivity of 96% a specificity of 92%, a positive predictive value of 86% and a negative predictive value of 97%, whereas the MMSE cut-off score of ≤ 24 showed values of 84%, 96%, 91%, and 92%, respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values to detect MCI compared to controls was 81%, 80%, 61%, and 92%, respectively, on the BCSE, with a cut-off score of ≤ 46, and 84%, 76%, 57%, and 92%, respectively, on the MMSE, with a cut-off score of ≤ 27.

The Dutch version of the BCSE is a clinically valid screening instrument for the detection of cognitive impairment in patients with dementia. Nevertheless, for distinguishing older adults with MCI from healthy controls both the BCSE and MMSE have limitations.

The Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS; Segal et al. (Segal, D. L., June, A., Payne, M., Coolidge, F. L. and Yochim, B. (2010). Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 24, 709–714. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.05.002) is a self-report measure of anxiety that was designed to address unique issues associated with anxiety assessment in older adults. This study is the first to use item response theory (IRT) to examine the psychometric properties of a measure of anxiety in older adults.

A large sample of older adults (n = 581; mean age = 72.32 years, SD = 7.64 years, range = 60 to 96 years; 64% women; 88% European American) completed the GAS. IRT properties were examined. The presence of differential item functioning (DIF) or measurement bias by age and sex was assessed, and a ten-item short form of the GAS (called the GAS-10) was created.

All GAS items had discrimination parameters of 1.07 or greater. Items from the somatic subscale tended to have lower discrimination parameters than items on the cognitive or affective subscales. Two items were flagged for DIF, but the impact of the DIF was negligible. Women scored significantly higher than men on the GAS and its subscales. Participants in the young-old group (60 to 79 years old) scored significantly higher on the cognitive subscale than participants in the old-old group (80 years old and older).

Results from the IRT analyses indicated that the GAS and GAS-10 have strong psychometric properties among older adults. We conclude by discussing implications and future research directions.

Despite mounting evidence that principles of palliative care are appropriate in care for individuals with dementia they are often not applied. As a result, patients with dementia are often exposed to burdensome interventions that have little or no benefit and are not provided with psychosocial treatments.

Recommendations for applying palliative care principles in caring for people with dementia are provided, based on the WHO definition of palliative care, our clinical experience and some key literature reports.

People with a diagnosis of an irreversible dementia such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their families are rarely informed that this is a terminal disease and palliative care principles are not discussed with them. They are applicable early in the course of illness when the person can still make end-of-life decisions. Palliative care can be used in conjunction with other therapies and services, such as hospice care that provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms. The care should include keeping people with dementia involved in meaningful activities which decrease or eliminate behavioral symptoms of dementia.

Educating families and professionals about palliative care is important as many professionals and non-professionals believe that this approach intends to hasten death, instead of affirming life and regarding dying as a normal process. Living, not just existing, with a dementing illness involves encouraging the person to continue to be involved in meaningful activities. Medical interventions should be compatible with goals of care and balance benefits and burdens for each intervention taking into consideration severity of dementia.

Personality disorder traits are relatively prevalent among older adults, and can be associated with complex and chronic difficulties, including suicide risk. However, there is a lack of research regarding personality disorders and suicide ideation in older adults. Depressive symptoms and hopelessness may be important to the relation between personality disorders and suicide risk. Additionally, variables from the interpersonal theory of suicide, perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, may be critical risk factors for suicide in this population. We hypothesized that perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, theory-based variables, would act as parallel mediators of the relation between personality disorder traits and suicide ideation, whereas depressive symptoms and hopelessness would not.

The hypothesis was tested in a sample of 143 older adults recruited from a primary care setting. Participants completed self-report questionnaires of personality traits, suicide ideation, depressive symptoms, hopelessness, perceived burdensomeness, and thwarted belongingness.

Findings from a non-parametric bootstrapping procedure indicated that perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and depressive symptoms mediated the relation between total personality disorder traits and suicide ideation. Hopelessness did not act as a mediator.

These findings indicate that perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and depressive symptoms are likely important risk factors for suicide ideation among older adults. Clinicians should be aware of these issues when assessing and treating suicide risk among older adults.

Relatives of people with dementia report that proxy decision-making is difficult and distressing. We systematically reviewed the literature about barriers and facilitators to family carers of people with dementia making proxy decisions, and interventions used to facilitate their decision-making.

We searched electronic databases and references of included papers up to February 2014. Two authors independently evaluated study quality using a checklist.

We included the 30/104 papers from our search which fitted predetermined criteria and prioritized higher quality papers. Family carers report that proxy decision-making is challenging and can be distressing, especially when decisions are made against the wishes of the care recipient and support from healthcare professionals is lacking. Decision-specific manualized aids have been developed, and while results for those supporting decisions about respite and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding have shown promising results in pilot trials, no intervention has yet been shown to significantly reduce decisional conflict or carer burden, or increase knowledge in randomized controlled trials; a decision aid for advance care planning increased decisional conflict.

We recommend development and testing of decision aids targeting the decisions carers report finding most distressing, including those around where people should live, accessing services, and end of life treatments. Being provided with information to make decisions which have not previously been considered may increase feelings of conflict, suggesting these aids should be carefully targeted.

Indigenous populations may be at increased risk, compared with majority populations, for the development of dementia due to lower education levels and socio-economic status, higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and alcohol abuse, an aging population structure, and poorer overall health. This is the first systematic review investigating the prevalence and incidence of dementia in indigenous populations worldwide.

This systematic review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycInfo for relevant papers published up to April 2015. Studies were included if they reported prevalence or incidence, the disease typically occurred after the age of 45, the study population included indigenous people, and the study was conducted in the general population.

Fifteen studies representing five countries (Canada, Australia, the USA, Guam, Brazil) met the inclusion criteria. Dementia prevalence ranged from 0.5% to 20%. Retrospective studies relying on medical records for diagnoses had much lower prevalence rates and a higher risk of bias than population-based prospective studies performing their own diagnoses with culturally appropriate cognitive assessment methods.

The prevalence of dementia among indigenous populations appears to be higher than it is for non-indigenous populations. Despite a building body of evidence supporting the need for dementia research among indigenous populations, there is a paucity of epidemiological research, none of which is of high quality.

With the proportion of older adults in Hong Kong projected to double in size in the next 30 years, it is important to develop measures for detecting individuals in the earliest stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD, 0.5 in Clinical Dementia Rating, CDR). We tested the utility of a non-verbal prospective memory task (PM, ability to remember what one has to do when a specific event occurs in the future) as an early marker for AD in Hong Kong Chinese.

A large community dwelling sample of older adults who are healthy controls (CDR 0, N = 125), in the earliest stage of AD (CDR 0.5, N = 125), or with mild AD (CDR 1, N = 30) participated in this study. Their reaction time/accuracy data were analyzed by mixed-factor analyses of variance to compare the performance of the three CDR groups. Logistic regression analyses were performed to test the discriminative power of these measures for CDR 0 versus 0.5 participants.

Prospective memory performance declined as a function of AD severity: CDR 0 > CDR 0.5 > CDR 1, suggesting the effects of early-stage AD and AD progression on PM. After partialling out the variance explained by psychometric measures (e.g., ADAS-Cog), reaction time/accuracy measures that reflected the PM still significantly discriminated between CDR 0 versus 0.5 participants in most of the cases.

The effectiveness of PM measures in discriminating individuals in the earliest stage of AD from healthy older adults suggests that these measures should be further developed as tools for early-stage AD discrimination.

National differences in cognitive health of older adults provide an opportunity to shed light on etiological factors. We compared the cognitive health of older adults in New Zealand and the USA, and examined differences in known risk factors.

Two nationally representative samples were derived from the 2010 waves of the New Zealand Longitudinal Study of Ageing (n = 953) and the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (n = 3,746). Data from comparable measures of cognitive function, gender, age, income, education, prevalence of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and stroke, exercise, alcohol consumption, smoker status, depression, and self-reported health were subjected to hierarchical regression analysis to examine how national differences in cognitive function might be explained by differences in these risk factors.

The New Zealand sample scored 4.4 points higher on average than the US sample on the 43 point cognitive scale. Regression analyses of the combined samples showed that poorer cognitive health is more likely in those who are male, older, less educated, have suffered a stroke, consume alcohol less frequently, are more depressed, and report worse overall health. Controlling for age and sex reduced the mean difference to 2.6 and controlling for risk factors further reduced it to 2.3.

Older New Zealand adults displayed better cognitive function than those in a US sample. This advantage can be partially explained by age and sex differences and, to some extent, by differences in known risk factors. However, the national advantage remained even when all measured risk factors are statistically controlled.