Depression worsens over time for older caregivers of newly diagnosed dementia patients

Caring for a partner or spouse with a new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or related dementia is associated with a 30% increase in depressive symptoms, compared to older adults who don’t have a spouse with dementia — and these symptoms are sustained over time, a new University of Michigan School of Nursing study found.

This sustained depression over time is important because partners are often caregivers for many years, said Melissa Harris, a doctoral student in the U-M School of Nursing and the study’s lead author.

"We know there's a lot of research out there on dementia and how it affects people diagnosed, but there's not a lot of research out there looking at the emotional health of partners," Harris explained.

Research suggests that depression can spike after a traumatic event — cancer diagnosis, accident, death, etc. — but that most people often return to their previous emotional health. That didn’t happen with the dementia caregivers.

Harris and U-M School of Nursing professors Geoffrey Hoffman, Ph.D., MPH, and Marita Titler, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, analyzed Health and Retirement Study data from 16,650 older adults — those without a partner diagnosis of dementia, those with a partner whose diagnosis was within the past two years and those with a partner whose diagnosis was older than two years.

Read more about the study from Michigan News and in U.S. News and World Report.