Introduction The recognition of facial expressions of emotion is essential to living in society. However, individuals with major depression tend to interpret information considered imprecise in a negative light, which can exert a direct effect on their capacity to decode social stimuli. Objective To compare basic facial expression recognition skills during tasks with static and dynamic stimuli in older adults with and without major depression. Methods Older adults were selected through a screening process for psychiatric disorders at a primary care service. Psychiatric evaluations were performed using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5). Twenty-three adults with a diagnosis of depression and 23 older adults without a psychiatric diagnosis were asked to perform two facial emotion recognition tasks using static and dynamic stimuli. Results Individuals with major depression demonstrated greater accuracy in recognizing sadness (p=0.023) and anger (p=0.024) during the task with static stimuli and less accuracy in recognizing happiness during the task with dynamic stimuli (p=0.020). The impairment was mainly related to the recognition of emotions of lower intensity. Conclusions The performance of older adults with depression in facial expression recognition tasks with static and dynamic stimuli differs from that of older adults without depression, with greater accuracy regarding negative emotions (sadness and anger) and lower accuracy regarding the recognition of happiness.

Background: Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a disorder in which the patient presents a cognitive decline, but without negative impact on the activities of daily living. Objective: To carry out a systematic review of published studies that analyzed the prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in older adults living in the community, and the criteria used for the diagnosis of this disorder. Methods: A search was carried out in May 2017 using the descriptors: "epidemiology" or "prevalence", "mild cognitive impairment", and "community" in the PubMed, PsycInfo, SciELO, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Two independent researchers extracted and documented the data. We used a random effect model to calculate pooled prevalence of MCI for overall studies and for each subgroup divided by diagnostic criteria. Results: We found initially 1996 articles, and we selected 35 studies. The prevalence of MCI in the selected studies ranged from 0.5% to 41.8%. The overall pooled prevalence of MCI was 17.3% (CI 95%, 13.8-20.8), with significant heterogeneity between estimates (I 2 = 99.6%). Discussion: The standardization of the diagnostic criteria for MCI, as well as the tests used in the cognitive evaluation, could allow the comparison between the studies and would be an important step in the researches of this area.

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RESUMO. Houve diferença estatisticamente significante no número de acertos da emoção tristeza no sexo feminino comparado com o masculino (t 84 = 2,30; p = 0,02). Em relação ao RMEt, a média geral de acertos foi de 26,5 (DP: ±3,3) com diferença estatisticamente significante entre os gêneros com maior número de acertos entre as estudantes do sexo feminino (t 84 = 3,43; p < 0,01). O escore total médio na escala de empatia foi 121,3 (DP: ±9,8). Houve correlação positiva fraca entre o escore total da escala de empatia e o número de acertos para a emoção tristeza (r = 0,29; p < 0,01). Conclusão: O número de acertos para a emoção tristeza no REF e o escore total do RMEt foi maior no sexo feminino comparado com sexo masculino. Além disso, a empatia parece estar diretamente relacionada com a capacidade de reconhecer a emoção tristeza. Outros estudos parecem pertinentes para avaliar de forma mais profunda aspectos de empatia e reconhecimento de expressões faciais da emoção em estudantes de medicina. ABSTRACTObjective: The aim was to evaluate empathy and facial expression recognition of basic and complex emotions and their correlations in medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in a medical school of the state of São Paulo. We evaluated 86 third and fourth year medical students with the following instruments:

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Social cognition is an individual's ability to differentiate his/her own mental state from the mental state of another person and recognize the desires, beliefs and feelings of this person 1 . The 5 th version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) recommends the use of facial emotion recognition tasks and theory of mind to evaluate social cognition 2 . The interest in appropriate Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks for use on older adults increased with the inclusion of social cognition among the criteria for the diagnosis of dementia in the DSM-5 2 .Our research group recently published the translation and crosscultural adaptation of the Brazilian version of the Theory of Mind Task Battery (ToM TB) in this journal 3 . Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the convergent validation of the ToM TB in a sample of community-dwelling older adults in the community.The study was conducted in the city of São Carlos, which is located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Data collection was performed by a psychologist and gerontologist, who had undergone training exercises for the administration of the instruments. All participants signed a statement of informed consent. The ToM TB is composed of nine different situations arranged in order of increasing difficulty, with the total score ranging from 0 to 15 4 . For convergent validation, the Brazilian version of Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) was applied and the correlation between it and the ToM TB was calculated. The RMET consists of 36 figures of eyes and the participant must choose the word that best describes the feeling shown in the figure among four options 5 .The sample was composed of 20 participants (8 men and 12 women) selected randomly from the list of adults older than 60 years registered at a family health unit. The exclusion criteria were severe cognitive decline, and auditory or visual deficits that could interfere with performance tasks. Mean age was 68.6 years (SD: ±7.61), mean schooling was 3.55 years (SD: ±2.63) and the majority (55%) was married. The score on the Mini Mental State Examination 6 was 22.65 (SD: ±5.38).On the RMET, mean number of correct guesses was 14.95 (SD: ±4.62), with a minimum score of 6 and maximum of 22. For the ToM TB, the total score was 8.85 (SD: ±3.56), with a minimum score of 1 and maximum of 14. With regard to convergent validity, Pearson's correlation coefficient between the ToM TB and RMET was 0.715 (p < 0.001), indicating a strong correlation between the instruments. There was no significant correlation between schooling and the ToM TB (rho = 0.200; p = 0.399) as well as between schooling and RMET (rho = 0.337; p = 0.146) (Figure 1).The existence of an instrument for the assessment of theory of mind validated for older adults may contribute to future studies and assist in the clinical evaluation of older adults with neurocognitive disorders, as impaired social cognition is currently one of the criteria for the diagnosis of dementia.The small sample may be considered a limitation...

ABSTRACT. Major depression can develop in individuals aged 60 years or older and is commonly associated with cognitive decline in this population, especially the domains of working memory, attention, executive functions, and processing speed. Schooling is a protective factor with regard to cognitive decline. Objective: To compare the cognitive performance of community-dwelling older adults with a low level of schooling with and without major depression. Methods: A descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted with 22 community-dwelling older adults with depression and 187 without depression. The following assessment tools were employed: Mini Mental Health Examination, Brief Cognitive Screening Battery, Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD), Digit Span Test (forward and backward), and an object similarity test. Results: No statistically significant differences were found between the groups with and without depression on any of the tests. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that there are no differences in the cognitive performance of older people with and without depression on neurocognitive tests commonly used in clinical practice. Future studies with different designs and methods as well as specific tests for older people with a low level of schooling could assist in the understanding of these relations and the mechanisms involved.

Empathy is an important factor to guarantee the quality of care provided in the long-term care institutions (LTCIs) for older adults, and depression is a factor that affects the health of the professional and, consequently, the care. Thus, it is important that studies are conducted on the relationship of these variables in this context. Objective: The aim of this study is to verify the relationship between empathy and depressive symptoms among health professionals working in the LTCIs. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at LTCIs in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The final sample was constituted by 101 health professionals (i.e., caregivers and nursing technicians) with direct participation in the care of institutionalized older adults. The instruments were used as follows: the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to assess empathy and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for the diagnosis of depression. For the analyses, the patients were divided into groups with and without depression, according to the score of the PHQ-9. Results: The prevalence of depression among health professionals was 19.8%. Significant statistical differences were found between the groups for the total score of the IRI (p=0.029), for the emotional domain (p=0.023), and for the personal distress (p=0.009). Conclusions: The findings indicate that the presence of depression among health professionals at LTCIs is related to the higher levels of empathy, especially in the emotional domain. Thus, future studies that contribute to understanding how care must be provided with empathy, but without harming the health of the professional, should be carried out.