Article Text
PDF
Abstract
Objectives The primary aim of this study is to describe depression and physical function in nursing home residents with dementia, as well as to examine the associations between depression and balance function, lower limb muscle strength, mobility and activities of daily living. The secondary aim is to examine the differences in physical function between the groups classified as depressed and not depressed.
Design The study has a cross-sectional design.
Setting A convenience sample of 18 nursing homes in, and around, Oslo, Norway, participated.
Participants We included 170 nursing home residents aged 60–100 years with mild or moderate degree of dementia defined by a score of 1 or 2 on the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR).
Outcome measures Assessments used were Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), ‘the 6-metre walking test’ (walking speed), 30 s Chair Stand Test (CST) and the Barthel Index (BI).
Results Nursing home residents with dementia are a heterogeneous group in terms of physical function and depression. By applying the recommended cut-off of ≥8 on CSDD, 23.5% of the participants were classified as being depressed. The results revealed significant associations between higher scores on CSDD (indicating more symptoms of depression) and lower scores on BBS (95% CI −0.12 to −0.02, p=0.006), 30 s CST (95% CI −0.54 to −0.07, p=0.001) as well as maximum walking speed (95% CI −4.56 to −0.20, p=0.003) (indicating lower level of physical function).
Conclusion Better muscle strength, balance and higher walking speed were significantly associated with less depressive symptoms. The potential interaction of dementia with poor physical function and depression indicates an area to explore in future epidemiological studies with a prospective design.
Trial registration number NCT02262104.
- nursing home
- dementia
- depression
- physical function
- balance
- muscle strength
- activities of daily living
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Twitter Follow Linda Kvæl at @lindakvael.
Contributors LAHK, AB and EWT participated in contribution to the design of the study, accountability for all aspects of the work and approval of the published version. LAHK was involved in drafting of the work. AB and EWT were responsible for revising the work.
Funding The Norwegian Fund for Post-Graduate Training in Physiotherapy funded this work, and the support of this organisation is gratefully acknowledged. The Norwegian Extra Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation has made the original project possible.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Detail has been removed from this case description/these case descriptions to ensure anonymity. The editors and reviewers have seen the detailed information available and are satisfied that the information backs up the case the authors are making.
Ethics approval The study was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical Ethics in Norway, reference number: 2012/1150.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.