4.1. Individual symptoms
The course of individual symptoms varied. A previous publication
has proposed that “irritability” should be used as a criterion of
depression in subjects with dementia as it may be regarded to
contain elements of dysphoria (Olin et al., 2002a). In the present
study 80.5% of the study population had dementia at baseline.
“Irritability” was the most prevalent, incident and persistent item
of the CSDD. This is in line with a study in geriatric psychiatry
services (Verkaik et al., 2009) and another addressing residents in
nursing homes (Ballard et al., 1996a), which both show that
“irritability” is highly prevalent among dementia sufferers with
comorbid depression. The study populations in these two studies
were somewhat different from the present, and neither of the two