Is episodic memory performance more vulnerable to depressive affect in older adulthood?

ABSTRACT

This study examined how age, depressive symptoms, demographic variables, frailty, and health factors jointly influence episodic memory across the lifespan in two large, diverse samples. Hierarchical regression analyses from both samples showed that depressive symptoms negatively impacted episodic memory performance with the effect being more pronounced for older adults. Health and frailty tended not to be associated with episodic memory. However, the main effect of depressive symptoms tended to remain significant over and above other predictors, while the interaction with age was weakened with the addition of demographic variables. The unique contribution of this study is demonstrating that the relationship between depressive symptoms and episodic memory is moderated by age across relatively large non-clinical lifespan samples of adults. The findings indicate the importance of measuring and studying depressive symptoms during the course of aging in order to better understand the complex relationship between age, affect, physical functioning, and memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• episodic memory
• depression
• chronic health
• frailty

Acknowledgments

We thank Sankaran Nair for his invaluable assistance in providing the data for this article. Joanna Fitzgibbons initially investigated the interactive effects of age and depressive symptoms in an honors thesis at Florida State University.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors, and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Aging or the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging, under the auspices of the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) (grant number 1 P01 AG17211) and (grant number 2 PO1 AG17211) project CREATE II.