These results suggest that public health measures to improve vascular status will influence the incidence of later-life depression, primarily via reduced rates of manifest vascular disease. Our findings on diagnosed vascular disease support current clinical guidelines to screen patients with coronary heart disease or stroke for depressive symptoms. However, although the stroke risk score was associated with depressive symptoms before the age of 65, we found little evidence to suggest that standard clinical information on preclinical vascular risk status would be helpful in the prediction of depressive symptoms after the age of 65 years. Thus, extending screening of incident later-life depression to include those identified as having a high risk of developing vascular disease was not supported by this study.
depressive symptoms
age
65
depressive symptoms
65 years
years