1 Research Fellow, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX3 7JX
The nature of the verbal learning impairment of elderly depressed patients was studied by comparing their performance with that of remitted depressives (the same patients on recovery) and of dementing patients.
The depressed patients showed some degree of learning defect, though this was less severe and affected fewer of the tasks than that of the dements.
The types of error made showed differences, the depressives tending to make less random errors and produce fewer false positives than the dements but to make more transposition errors.
Submitted on July 31, 1972