Abstract

The psychopathology of the elderly is not approached to an appropriate extent in the psychological research in Romania, despite the fact that the emergence of specific symptoms occurs at an early age. This phenomenon leads to a drastic decline of the quality of life of those individuals, and accelerates their disengagement from professional and social positions and roles. In our research, we aim to highlight the correlations between depression and dementia on a sample of 100 third-age individuals, processing the data from applying MMSE-2 and MADRS. Our results confirmed the positive correlations between depression and dementia, and also the fact that women experience a higher level of depression compared to men. Our findings are in trend with those of longitudinal studies, which included large-scale participants, as a result of increasing interest in gerontopsychology issues at international level.