Written By: N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe | Published : December 22, 2025 1:30 PM IST
Dementia is a broad term for neurological conditions that affect people's cognitive skills and memories such as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. It is a disease that damages a person's memory, thinking and the ability to perform daily activities. A 2021 study revealed that about 57 million people lived with dementia, but researchers are still unclear what exactly causes the cognitive disease. However, they have identified several possibilities that can pose a serious risk for dementia later in life and one specific health condition is depression.
A study published in the Journal of The Lancet Psychiatry outlined six specific depression symptoms that signal dementia risk later in life. Scientists analysed over 5800 middle-aged adult participants who had depressive symptoms assessed between 1997 and 1999. Interestingly, the study states that people who had five or more depression symptoms in midlife had a 27% higher risk of developing dementia.
Here are the six specific depressive symptoms, scientists warned in the Lancet report that may indicate a higher risk of developing dementia:
The lead author of this study, Philipp Frank, PhD, senior research fellow in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London, told the media, "The 27% higher risk confirms that depression in midlife is associated with dementia many years later, but on its own it doesn't tell the full story. What's important is that this overall increase was not evenly distributed across all depressive symptoms. When we looked more closely, we found that the elevated risk was driven by a small subset of symptoms rather than depression as a single diagnosis."
Talking about the findings, Professor Mika Kivim ki, Faculty of Brain Sciences at the University College London (UCL), said, "Depression doesn't have a single shape - symptoms vary widely and often overlap with anxiety. We found that these nuanced patterns can reveal who is at higher risk of developing neurological disorders. This brings us closer to more personalised and effective mental health treatments."
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some of the most common signs of dementia include:
According to the National Council on Ageing (NCOA), your chance of developing dementia depends on your background and lifestyle, and some of the risk factors that you can control include:
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