BACKGROUND Memory complaints and depressive symptoms are frequently associated in older adults and both serve as potential indicators of future cognitive decline. However, the temporal ordering of the development of these two symptoms remains unclear. The goal of the current study was to examine concurrent and temporal relationships between memory complaints and depressive symptoms in older adults. METHODS Data were drawn from two longitudinal, nationally representative datasets and included cognitively intact older adults aged 65 and over. The datasets in the current study were from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using an integrative analytic framework, we tested bidirectional temporal relationships between memory complaints (memory ratings and perceived memory decline) and depressive symptoms over 6 to 9 years of data in over 5000 older adults across these two samples. RESULTS Across both datasets, perceived memory decline predicted future depressive symptoms whereas memory ratings did not. Additionally, results showed that at times when depressive symptoms tended to be higher, memory complaints were also higher, but depressive symptoms did not predict future memory complaints. One finding that was inconsistent across datasets was memory ratings predicting depressive symptoms. After accounting for covariates, this relationship was only significant in one dataset. CONCLUSIONS Cognitively intact older adults who report memory decline may be at risk for developing depressive symptoms in the future. Furthermore, our findings highlight the importance of using immediate replication of results across datasets to determine the generalizability of conclusions.

中文翻译：

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随着时间的推移出现记忆障碍和抑郁症状：结构水平的复制分析。

背景技术在老年人中，记忆障碍和抑郁症状经常相关，并且两者均是未来认知能力下降的潜在指标。但是，这两个症状的发展的时间顺序仍然不清楚。本研究的目的是检查老年人的记忆障碍与抑郁症状之间的时空关系。方法数据来自两个纵向的，具有全国代表性的数据集，其中包括65岁及65岁以上认知完好的成年人。当前研究中的数据集来自美国国家健康与老龄化趋势研究（NHATS）和健康与退休研究（HRS）。使用综合分析框架，我们在这两个样本中的5000多个成年人中，测试了6到9年的数据中，记忆抱怨（记忆等级和感知的记忆衰退）与抑郁症状之间的双向时间关系。结果在这两个数据集中，感知的记忆力下降预示了未来的抑郁症状，而记忆力评定却没有。此外，结果表明，在抑郁症状趋于升高的时候，记忆障碍也较高，但是抑郁症状并不能预测未来的记忆障碍。跨数据集不一致的一项发现是预测抑郁症状的记忆评估。在考虑了协变量之后，这种关系仅在一个数据集中有意义。结论报告记忆力下降的认知完好的老年人将来可能会出现抑郁症状。此外，我们的发现强调了使用跨数据集的结果即时复制来确定结论的普遍性的重要性。