Objective: To find the prevalence of depressive illness associated with dementia in our geriatric population.
Material and methods: A study was made of the entire population aged over 69 years in eight rural districts of the province of Girona (Spain). Diagnosis was made using CAMDEX criteria.
Results: The prevalence of depression (depressive disorders plus pseudo dementia) was 9.1% (IC = 7.6-10.5%). In the group of patients with dementia, the frequency of depression was 28.15% whilst in the group with no dementia it was 5.4% (p = 0.0000). No differences were seen in the prevalence of depression between patients with Alzheimer type dementia (ATD) and those with vascular dementia (VD). The gravity of dementia, sex and age did not influence the frequency of depression.
Conclusions: Depression in patients with dementia was very frequent in our geriatric population. Dementia was seen to be a risk factor with regard to depression.