Impaired declarative memory in depressed patients is slow to recover: clinical experience

The temporal course of recovery of depressed patients' cognitive impairment is not fully understood. We used the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) to test declarative memory in 24 depressed patients before and after 35 days of antidepressive treatment as well as after long-term follow-up (> 12 months) in order to relate improvement of depression to recovery of cognitive impairment. Patients with complete remission after 35 days had generally been less impaired at baseline. The disturbance of declarative memory in treatment responders as well as in non-responders did not change from baseline to end of treatment (day 35). However, our results revealed normal values in the CVLT sum score as well as in measures of short- and long-delay free-recall measures in both groups after long-term full remission. We conclude that clinical response to antidepressive treatment precedes improvement of declarative memory. A low degree of impairment of declarative memory is associated with early complete remission of depression.