Lockdown Increases Depression In Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease: Is This Backed By Research?

The lockdown, as implemented to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, has drastically changed our everyday lives. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), especially those who live in retirement homes, are not indifferent to the dramatic impact of the lockdown on social interactions.

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A team of French and Australian researchers and clinicians, led by Mohamad El Haj from the University of Nantes-France, has assessed the effects of lockdown on mental health in a large sample of patients with AD living in retirement homes during the lockdown. The team compared depression scores of patients before vs during the lockdown and found increased depression in the patients during the lockdown. This increased depression can be attributed to the restrictive measures, limiting daily institutional activities and physical contact between patients, as well as between patients and their beloved ones.

While most governments and health agencies had no other choice than to implement the restrictive measures to cope with Covid-19 and limit its spread among residents, these restrictive measures have increased depression and, consequently, decreased mental health and wellbeing of patients with AD. While the increased depression in patients with AD has been widely reported by clinicians, the study of Dr. El Haj et al. provides a research-supported evidence to this report.

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