Detecting and managing depression and anxiety in people with dementia

Affective symptoms are common in people with dementia, but are both under-detected and under-treated. These symptoms cause significant distress to the patients and their carers. The fluctuation of these symptoms, their overlap with the clinical features of dementia, and the difficulty for the patients to provide accurate accounts of these symptoms makes identification of these symptoms more difficult. A range of useful, reliable and valid scales has been developed to evaluate these symptoms, however. Depressive symptoms appear to respond well to pharmacological and psychological therapies. Further studies are needed in the management of anxiety symptoms.