Treatment Resistant Geriatric Depression in Primary Care
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2012-04-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
This study involves collaboration between McLean Hospital, Geriatric Medicine at the
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and other sites within the Partners and Harvard Medical
School network. The investigators plan to recruit individuals 55 to 89 years old with
treatment resistant depression. Someone with "treatment resistant" depression for this study
may be someone who still has sad or low feelings and thoughts even though he/she is taking an
antidepressant medication for at least 8 weeks to help relieve his/her depression. During the
study, subjects will gradually add memantine hydrochloride in dosages up to 20 mg/day for 8
weeks to their standard antidepressant treatment.
The investigators are doing this research study to help answer 3 questions:
1. Do older adults with treatment resistant Major Depression have lower levels of a
chemical in the brain called NAAG than older adults without Major Depression?
2. Do older adults with naturally low NAAG levels do better on memantine hydrochloride
treatment than older adults with higher amounts of this chemical on memantine
hydrochloride treatment?
3. Do older adults with treatment resistant depression have more problems with memory and
concentration than older adults without depression?
The investigators are also interested in looking at electrical and neuronal activity of the
brain, spiritual beliefs, and fatigue in relationship to depression.
The investigators hypothesize that:
1. Older individuals with treatment resistant Major Depression will have lower levels of
NAAG compared with age-matched older control subjects.
2. Older adults with treatment resistant depression and low NAAG levels will do better on
treatment with memantine hydrochloride than older adults on memantine with higher NAAG
levels.
3. Older adults with depression will do better on tests of attention and executive
functioning after treatment with memantine hydrochloride.
4. Healthy controls will do better on tests of attention and executive functioning than
older adults with depression.