Dr. Majid Fotuhi

Yes, that's an excellent question.

And you actually answered it in part yourself.

So when a person has depression, they also have other features such as melancholy, or they don't want to talk, or they don't want to eat, or they have symptoms of depression.

When you see them, they are depressed.

You don't have to be a psychiatrist to talk with someone and appreciate that they have melancholy, they're sad, or they have way out of proportion anxiety.

Whereas a person who has Alzheimer's disease, she may ask the same question and not know what year it is, but they're pleasant and happy.

They're not really depressed.

They have no idea they have asked the same question 40 times.

As far as they're concerned, they're asking the question now.

And if you let them alone with the grandchildren, they'll play with the grandchildren.

They'll have a ball.

They don't have insight that there's a problem.

They're happy in their own world.

Whereas a person with depressed doesn't want to socialize, doesn't want to do things, and they're depressed.

Now, depression may be the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

It could be that

a person is starting to realize that their brain is not working and they are becoming depressed in that setting.

Or the parts of the brain, like frontal lobes, may have issues that don't allow the person to be cheerful and have a normal, regular personality they had before.

One way to figure it out practically is that you treat the depression in the person that you think has depression.

And if they get better, that's what it was.