Memory deficits in patients with major depression: yes, they are trying hard enough!

ABSTRACT

Background: Cognitive impairment is a common symptom of patients with Major Depression (MDD) with negative clinical and social effects. With this study we investigated the question of whether MDD patients’ effort to memorize items is reduced and whether this reduction is related to patients’ memory impairment.

Research design and methods: Twenty-two patients with MDD and 28 healthy control participants took part in the study. Both groups did not differ with respect to age, gender, and basic education. MDD was confirmed by the Mini Diagnostic Interview for Mental Disorders (Mini-DIPS). Willingness to make an effort was assessed by the Amsterdam Short-Term Memory Test (ASTM). Logical Memory (LM) from the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS IV) was used to assess verbal memory.

Results: With respect to the willingness to make an effort, all MDD-patients performed above the cutoff and did not perform worse than healthy control participants. Depression appears to have a negative impact on recall and recognition of verbal information, but the effect on recall was larger.

Conclusions: These findings support studies indicating no motivational deficits in patients with depression during standardized neuropsychological testing. Reduced motivation is not a plausible explanation for depressive patients’ cognitive deficits assessed with neuropsychological tests.

KEYWORDS:

• Effort
• motivation
• exaggeration
• logical Memory
• recall
• recognition

Article highlights

• Patients with depression do not show motivational deficits during standardized neuropsychological testing.

• Reduced motivation is not a plausible explanation for depressive patients’ cognitive deficits assessed with neuropsychological tests.

• Memory complaints are not related to memory test results.

• Exaggeration of cognitive impairment is limited to self-reports and may indicate that patients with MDD are excessively critical of their own performance.

• Depression appears to have a negative impact on recall and recognition, but the effect on recall is larger.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.