Antidepressant Response in the Treatment of Depressive Symptoms and Frailty Characteristics in Older Adults
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2020-12-05
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The goal of this open-administration treatment study of citalopram (or duloxetine) is to
evaluate the effect of antidepressant medication on treating the syndrome of "frailty" in
older adults with depressive symptoms. Patients with significant depressive symptoms (defined
as CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression scale) > 10) and 1 or more symptoms
of the frailty syndrome (exhaustion, decreased energy, weight loss, decreased grip strength,
and slow/unsteady gait) will be evaluated and treated with citalopram (or duloxetine) for 8
weeks to test whether antidepressant medication improves both the syndrome of frailty and
depressive symptoms. Patients evaluated at the Adult and Late Life Depression clinic and
eligible to participate in the study will be treated with an antidepressant medication and
assessed on the primary outcome variables (characteristics of frailty, depressive symptoms)
as well as on secondary variables which include cognition (global cognition, episodic memory,
executive function), and function (physical mobility, instrumental activities of daily
living, and social functioning) prior to treatment initiation and following 8-weeks of
treatment. The hypotheses for this protocol predict that we will discover a significant
improvement on both frailty characteristics and depressive symptoms in this clinical
population when treated with antidepressant medication (citalopram or duloxetine).