ABSTRACT
Silent cerebral infarction (SCI) is often detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with depression in late life. The late-life depression combined with SCI is known as MRI-defined vascular depression. Many studies have shown that this type of depression is likely to develop both psychiatric and neurological disorders in the course of time. Based on the previous findings, we made a 3-year follow-up study of patients with MRI-defined vascular depression in order to clarify risk factors that help develop complications such as delirium, dementia and parkinsonism. In this study, vascular risk factors (i.e., hypertension, diabetes mellitus etc.) were investigated retrospectively using clinical charts. Because of the small sample size, we could not find anything new about risk factors critical for either psychiatric or neurological disorders in patients with MRI-defined vascular depression. To demonstrate that preventing lifestyle-related diseases could reduce chances of having both psychiatric and neurological disorders, prospective studies are needed.