Introduction: Acquired immunodefi ciency syndrome (AIDS) is being increasingly reported among the elderly and major depression (MD) may be associated with suboptimal adherence to treatment. Methods: Cross-sectional study on factors associated with MD among 72 HIV-infected elderly individuals. Results: Twenty (27.7%) patients were found to have MD. The female gender (odds ratio [OR] = 10.65; p = 0.00586), a low CD4 count during the study (OR = 1.005247; p = 0.01539), and current smoking status (OR = 12.89; p = 0.01693) were independently associated with MD. Conclusions: Our data underscore the need to attentively search and treat MD among HIV-infected elderly patients.

Objetivo: descrever os achados de publicações, abordando os aspectos relacionados a mudanças na qualidade de vida (QV) de idosos com síndrome demencial que participaram da Terapia Assistida Por Animais (TAA) aplicada por profissionais de saúde. Método: revisão integrativa da literatura na Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) de publicações indexadas publicadas entre 2015 e 2020. A busca foi realizada no período de julho a agosto de 2020 utilizando os descritores ‘idoso’, ‘demência’, ‘terapia assistida por animais’ e ‘qualidade de vida’ com o operador booleano AND. Foram encontrados 15 artigos, dos quais seis compuseram a amostra final, após avaliação dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão. A análise dos artigos foi baseada na análise de conteúdo de Bardin. Resultados: Cinco artigos selecionados mostram experiências europeias do uso da TAA e um é uma revisão de literatura conduzida por grupo italiano. Após a análise de conteúdo, as unidades de registro foram agrupadas em cinco categorias baseadas nos domínios físico, psicológico, emocional e social da QV. As categorias são: TAA melhora aspectos sociais, TAA melhora aspectos psicológicos/mentais, TAA melhora aspectos emocionais, TAA melhora aspectos físicos, e TAA não impacta ou impacta negativamente na QV. Conclusão: A TAA melhorou a qualidade de vida de idosos com demência, principalmente a interação social e pode ser pensada como uma terapia alternativa terapêutica para esta população.

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Objetivos: descrever a frequência de depressão em pacientes com hepatite C (HCV) e relacionar com as variáveis biológicas e função hepática. Métodos: estudo transversal, descritivo, de abordagem quantitativa, que avaliou a depressão utilizando os critérios do Manual de diagnóstico e estatístico de transtornos mentais (DSM-V) e a associação com as variáveis biológicas e de função hepática em 85 pacientes com HCV crônica indicados para a terapia antiviral de ação direta (DAA) entre maio de 2018 e 2019. Resultados: detectou-se depressão em 47,1% dos pacientes, predominantemente depressão leve (95%). Entretanto a depressão ocorreu de forma independente das características biológicas, como sexo, idade, escolaridade, comorbidades associadas e da função hepática, como grau de fibrose e genótipo viral. Conclusões: a frequência de depressão foi alta em pacientes com HCV e não teve relação estatística com as características biológicas e função hepática, sugerindo a busca ativa da depressão como estratégia na condução destes pacientes.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a leading cause of liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and liver-related deaths. It is estimated that 40–74% of patients with hepatitis C will experience at least one extrahepatic manifestation within their lifetime. The finding of HCV-RNA sequences in post-mortem brain tissue raises the possibility that HCV infection may affect the central nervous system and be the source of subtle neuropsychological symptoms, even in non-cirrhotic. Our investigation aimed to evaluate whether asymptomatic, HCV-infected subjects showed cognitive dysfunctions. Twenty-eight untreated asymptomatic HCV subjects and 18 healthy controls were tested using three neuropsychological instruments in a random sequence: Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), and Continuous Visual Attention Test (CVAT). We performed depression screening, liver fibrosis assessment, blood tests, genotyping, and HCV-RNA viral load. A MANCOVA and univariate ANCOVAS were performed to examine group differences (HCV vs. healthy controls) in four scores of the CVAT (omission errors, commission errors, reaction time—RT, and variability of RT—VRT), and the scores derived from the SDMT, and the COWAT. A discriminant analysis was performed to identify which test variables effectively discriminate HCV-infected subjects from healthy controls. There were no group differences in the scores of the COWAT, SDMT, and in two variables of the CVAT (omission and commission errors). In contrast, the performance of the HCV group was poorer than the controls in RT (p = 0.047) and VRT (p = 0.046). The discriminant analysis further indicated that the RT was the most reliable variable to discriminate the two groups with an accuracy of 71.7%. The higher RT exhibited by the HCV group may reflect deficits in the intrinsic-alertness attention subdomain. As the RT variable was found to be the best discriminator between HCV patients and controls, we suggest that intrinsic-alertness deficits in HCV patients may affect the stability of response times increasing VRT and leading to significant lapses in attention. In conclusion, HCV subjects with mild disease showed deficits in RT and intraindividual VRT as compared to healthy controls.

Background: Neurotropism of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be the source of subtle neuropsychological symptoms in non-cirrhotic patients. Age is a risk factor for cognitive impairment (CI). Thus, asymptomatic elderly people who carry HCV might be at a greater risk of CI. Education can influence test performance. Objectives: (1) To verify whether elderly people with HCV performed poorer than controls on cognitive tests. (2) To analyze how education affects performance. (3) To verify whether the extent of the effect of education on performance depends on the group (HCV vs. controls) and the type of cognitive test. Methods: Asymptomatic HCV carriers older than 60 years (n = 41) were matched with 41 corresponding controls. All participants performed the following tests: Mini-Cog, Mini Mental State Examination, clock drawing test (CDT), and verbal fluency. Results: (1) There were no significant differences in cognitive performance between the two groups. (2) Higher education was always associated with better performance. (3) There was a significant group difference in the slopes of the regression lines between years of education and CDT performance. No differences were found for the other three tests. Conclusion: Considering the scores on the CDT, the rate of improvement in performance when schooling increases is higher in HCV carriers.

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