Treatment of Depression in the Elderly

Exclusion Criteria

• •Patients with a current depressive episode of a severity reaching a score of ≥ 12 on the HAM-D6-item depression factor. This is to exclude patients with severe or psychotic depression
• •Patients with suicidal thoughts or behaviour
• •Patients with conditions where treatment with escitalopram is contraindicated: e.g. hypersensitivity to escitalopram or other contents of escitalopram tablets, concomitant treatment with non-selective, irreversible mono-amine-oxidase inhibitors, such as Marplan
• •Patients who in the current depressive episode have had a failed trial of treatment with escitalopram
• •Co-morbid dementia with a severity corresponding to a score on the MMSE of less than 17 as these patients will often be without the ability to give informed consent
• •Patients with sensory defects rendering psychometric assessment impossible, e.g. deafness, blindness, severe aphasia
• •Patients who cannot speak Danish well enough to make psychometric assessment possible and meaningful
• •Patients with congenital or early acquired intellectual deficits