The Relationship between Depression and Behavioral Symptoms in Patient with Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: There has been a recent increase in the number of long-term care hospitals as society ages. The burden of caring for dementia patients and managing their abnormal behavior is the most important factor which make caregivers desire access to special centers, including long-term care hospitals. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. We investigated the relationship between clinical depression and behavioral symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia. Methods: The patients with Alzheimer’s dementia and their caregivers who visited the dementia-psychiatry clinic at Kwangju Veterans Hospital between February 2012 and April 2014 were involved in this study. Among 319 patients with Alzheimer’s dementia, we selected patients who scored similarly on clinical dementia rating score and Korean mini-mental status examination score and classified them into either a depression group (N = 35; male, 25; female, 10) who showed clinically significant symptoms of depression or a not-depression group (N = 31; male, 19; female, 12) who did not show any clinical symptoms. The clinical symptoms of depression were evaluated with geriatiric depres sion scale, and the relationship between depression and abnormal behaviors was analyzed by chi-square test and Mann-Whitney test. Results: The depression group showed a significantly higher proportion (45.7%) of sleep-related behavior disorders than not-depression group (22.6%) (P 0.05). Conclusion: There was no relationship between depression and abnormal behavior in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.