Dr Anderson is right in claiming that if patients with dementia are excluded from the calculations, the prognosis for the depression among the elderly will improve: but can dementia be regarded as a successful outcome from index depression which is incident in old age? This question may also be applied to those elderly subjects who had died at follow-up. As such, dementia and death were given special outcome categories in this study.

As to the depression status of the elderly subjects before death, they were: four died during their index illness; six achieved full recovery; two recovered, relapsed and recovered; five had chronic illness and one had dementia.

The depression status of the elderly subjects prior to developing dementia were: one recovered completely; six recovered, relapsed and recovered; and in one the depressive illness became chronic and dementia subsequently developed.

None of the younger adults recovered prior to their death but: three recovered, relapsed and recovered again; one developed chronic depressive illness; one developed post-stroke dementia; and three were classified as dead during the index illness (one by suicide).

Given this new information the reader may work out the figures accordingly.