Alzheimer's Disease and Suicide: An Integrative Literature Review

Introduction: Suicide has been described in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Some promising medications for treating Alzheimer's disease have had their studies suspended because they increase the risk of suicide. Understanding the correlations between suicide and Alzheimer's disease is essential in an aging world. Methods: A search was carried out on electronic websites (PubMed and Scielo) using the MeSH Terms “suicide” and “Alzheimer” (1986-2023). Of a total of 115 articles, 26 were included in this review. Results: Depression and the allele 4 of Apolipoprotein (APOE4) were demonstrated to be the main risk factors for suicide in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Conclusion: Adequately delineating which elderly people are vulnerable to suicide is important so that new treatments for Alzheimer's disease can be successful. This review showed a need for new studies to investigate the interface between Alzheimer's disease and suicide.