随着人们的年龄增长，他们可能会经历记忆的变化，例如忘记约会或某人的名字，导致对记忆功能的担忧。老年人有时会报告记忆问题，尽管在记忆测试中正常执行，例如医生进行的记忆测试。即使认知测试正常subjective memory complaints考虑重要的是重要的，因为它们可能是记忆和记忆和认识or psychological stress such as depression or anxiety. Older adults can havememory complaints也抑郁症的典型症状，使医疗保健提供者难以确定这些症状的相关性。从当前的研究中尚不清楚，在抑郁症状和记忆障碍的老年人中，抑郁症状是否导致记忆力问题，或者对记忆问题的感知是否有助于抑郁症状的发展。

To better understand the order in which memory complaints and depressive symptoms occur, we need to see how these two symptoms develop within an individual over time. Inour new study， 出版于BMC老年人，我们研究了在6 - 18年的两组老年人中，抑郁症状和记忆障碍的发展。

What we did

Perceiving that their memory is getting worse may lead an older adult to experience symptoms of depression.

我们使用了两个大型公开数据集，共同代表了来自美国各地的10,000多名老年人。这些纵向数据集包括记忆投诉和抑郁症状的度量，这些措施是通过每年或每年每年进行18年进行的访谈收集的。从我们的研究中消除了任何经历临床认知变化的老年人。这很重要，因为由于缺乏对记忆问题的认识，认知障碍的人可能不会报告记忆投诉。

Older adults reported their perceptions of their memory in two questions, one for current memory rating and one for memory decline over the past year or two years. The first question asked for a rating of their memory at the present time. A second question then asked whether they perceived their memory to be better, worse, or the same as it was the last time they were interviewed. For depressive symptoms, older adults indicated whether they had recently experienced a range of symptoms e.g., felt down, depressed or hopeless. We controlled for other personal characteristics that might influence depressive symptoms and/or memory complaints such as sex, education level, age, race/ethnicity, income, and marital status.

What we found

我们首先检查了记忆投诉是否与抑郁症状共同出现。也就是说，在一个人报告记忆投诉时，他们是否报告了更多的抑郁症状？在两个数据集之一中，我们发现有时老年人提供较低的电流记忆等级时，他们还报告了更多的抑郁症状。重要的是，我们还发现，有时候，当老年人报告记忆力下降时，他们还报告了两个数据集的同一访谈中的抑郁症状。

We then examined whether memory complaints predicted future depressive symptoms. We found that older adults’ rating of their current memory at one interview was not related to their depressive symptoms at the next interview. However, when an older adult reported a decline in memory at one interview, they reported more symptoms of depression at the next interview across both datasets. Interestingly, this was not true in the other direction: current symptoms of depression did not predict future memory complaints.

What it means

帮助老年人了解记忆的正常变化可以防止抑郁症状的增加。

Memory complaints are often seen as a symptom of depression in older adults; however, our work suggests that this is not the case for all types of memory complaints. Older adults’ low rating of their memory performance can be related to depressive symptoms, but is not always. In contrast, older adults’ feeling of their memory getting worse over longer periods of time (e.g., a year or two) is consistently related to their current feelings of sadness and hopelessness as well as to increases in future depressive symptoms. Therefore, perceiving that their memory is getting worse may lead an older adult to experience symptoms of depression. This may be because when an older adult feels like their memory is getting worse, they start to experience sadness or hopelessness about their memory, and what it means to grow older in general. Alternatively, for some older adults, perceiving that their memory is getting worse could also trigger fears about dementia or other aging-related disorders. It likely depends on the individual and their different experiences with aging and memory.

Clinical implications

与老年人一起工作的医疗保健专业人员应考虑询问他们的记忆如何随着时间的流逝而变化。这些类型的问题对于了解老年人目前的感受是必要的，但对于他们在未来的约会中的感觉也很重要。这表明，帮助老年人了解记忆的正常变化可以防止抑郁症状的增加，并促进心理健康和福祉。