"Pseudodementia" needs a third look. Always a "soft" diagnosis, it has never had objective, explicit diagnostic criteria or a spot in an official nomenclature. For most of the past 4 decades, however, pseudodementia-depression masquerading as dementia-has held a firm place in the differential diagnosis of dementia. Now many depression and dementia specialists, armed with new data, have taken a second look and have concluded that this diagnosis has had its day-that is, that the concept of pseudodementia is no longer valid or useful.1,2 The demise of pseudodementia, however, might not be the answer.
