Elderly Blues Linked to Low Blood Flow
Arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a common vascular disease among elderly people. It is caused by a buildup of fatty deposits--or plaque--on the arteries' inner lining. As the buildup progresses beyond a certain point, it restricts the flow of blood in the body and may cause many forms of physical decline.
U of L psychologist Benjamin Mast says arteriosclerosis and other forms of vascular disease also increase the risk for depression in the elderly. Using data from a National Institute of Aging (NIA) study of 2,113 elderly subjects, Mast found that vascular disease was associated with a "50 to 90 percent increased risk for incident development of depression after three years."
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U of L College of Arts and Sciences psychological and brain sciences professor Benjamin Mast found evidence that restricted blood flow in older people may contribute to depression.
He presented his findings this past spring at the annual meeting of the American Geriatric Society, where he received the society's New Investigator Award for 2005 in recognition of his work in vascular depression research.
"It was a very nice surprise for me," Mast says. "It was great to be recognized by this particular group."
Mast's subjects--ages 70 to 79 with no evidence of depression--were enrolled in the NIA's Health, Aging and Body Composition Study, an ongoing investigation in Pittsburgh and Memphis designed to assess factors that contribute to disability in the elderly.
"We followed them for a couple of years and tried to see if some of them who had vascular disease or other vascular risk factors demonstrated a higher risk for depression," Mast says.
The connection between vascular disease and late-life depression is significant because depression in the elderly is common and can lead to other negative outcomes. The study is important because scientists are still trying to identify risk factors for elderly depression.
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"The vascular depression hypothesis is really one specific idea that identifies a potential subgroup of older adults who have an increased risk for depression," he says. "This is one potential subtype of late-life depression that we can identify and better understand."
Mast says the vascular disease/depression link has broad implications for health-care providers and researchers.
"The American Geriatrics Society has a mix of researchers and geriatricians, people who are actually seeing older adults," he says. "So it is really exciting for that connection to get out there."
Mast now is interested in studying whether those older adults who develop vascular depression are at greater risk for cognitive decline over time.
"There is some suggestion in the literature that older adults who have depression are at greater risk for developing dementia syndromes--things like Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia," he says. "That's really what I'm interested in looking at next."
