A controlled clinical trial of sertraline in the treatment of depression in nursing home patients with late-stage Alzheimer's disease.

A sample of 31 female nursing home patients with late-stage Alzheimer's disease participated in a double-blind clinical trial of the antidepressant medication sertraline. Measures of depression included various objective scales and two measures of facial expressions of emotion coded during a semistructured interview using a facial affect coding system. Repeated-measures ANOVAs at baseline and at the 8-week endpoint indicated that on all measures, both the treatment and placebo groups improved over time, with three of six measures showing a significant time effect. The "knit-brow" facial measure approached significance for a Treatment x Time effect. Thus, sertraline had no significant benefits over placebo. However, if, as we hypothesize, the knit-brow response is more sensitive to signs of depression in advanced dementia, our study justifies the further investigation of the use of sertraline in this population.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes