Memory and attention: depression and anxiety as factors related to cognitive decline in institutionalized and non-institutionalized elders

Abstract

During the aging process is likely to occur decline in cognitive functions such as memory and attention. This decline may be related to several variables, such as low education, lack of physical and intellectual stimulation, decreased functionality due to different pathologies, and mood disorders, among which we highlight depression and anxiety. Objectives: 1) To assess the incidence of attention deficit, focusing on mechanisms attentional and working memory, as well as the occurrence of mood disorders (depression and anxiety) in institutionalized and not institutionalized elders. 2) Check in the subjects studied, the existence or not of correlations between the decline of memory and attention with mood disorders analyzed. Methods and procedures: the research will be conducted in Marilia - SP. The research subjects will be 80 elders, of both sexes, which will be divided into 04 groups: a) Institutionalized Elderly (LTCF-1 = 25) b) Institutionalized Elderly (LTCF-2 = 15), c) non-institutionalized elderly participants University of the Third Age - UnATI / UNESP (UnATI = 15) and elderly residents in the community (COM = 25). Will be used to collect data for the following instruments: 1) Anamnesis: clinical psychological examination. 2) Beck Depression Inventory - BDI-II. 3) C-STAI Trait Anxiety Inventory-State. 4) Mini Mental State Examination - MMSE. 5) Subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence - WAIS III (Matrix Reasoning, Symbol Search, and Digit cubes). Data analysis will use the Student's t test for independent groups and the Mann-Whitney's test for nonparametric data; between three or more independent groups will use the simple analysis of variance and analysis of variance Kruskal-Wallis' nonparametric data. Will be adopted significance level of 5% probability for rejection of null hypothesis. For the qualitative assessment, Pearson's correlation coefficient of (r). (AU)