Health · Medical Research · 3 hrs ago
Memory problems may signal greater dementia risk in frail older adults
Researchers in England studied how different thinking problems relate to later dementia in older adults who were physically frail.
They used data from 7,023 people aged 50 and over, followed for about 10 years.
At the start, 646 participants had both physical frailty and cognitive difficulties.
The researchers grouped these participants by whether they had problems with memory, verbal fluency or processing speed.
Memory difficulties appeared more important for dementia risk than problems with verbal fluency or processing speed when memory was preserved.
Dementia during follow-up was identified using reported diagnoses, informant assessments and cognitive screening, so not every case was confirmed by a clinician.
A decade-long study of older adults in England examined whether different patterns of cognitive impairment in physically frail people were linked to later dementia.
The study classified 646 participants as cognitively frail at baseline, about 9.2% of the analytical sample.
Researchers identified three profiles, including memory impairment alone and memory impairment alongside other thinking difficulties.
The study used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging and followed participants for approximately 10 years.
- Who
- Researchers studying older adults in England.
- What
- The study examined how patterns of cognitive frailty related to dementia identified during follow-up.
- When
- Baseline data were collected in 2008–2009, with approximately 10 years of follow-up.
- Where
- England.
- Why
- To examine whether different cognitive frailty profiles and social circumstances were associated with later dementia.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Wave 4 of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging provided baseline information.
Researchers collected follow-up data covering approximately 10 years.
Dementia during follow-up was identified using self-reported diagnoses, informant assessments and cognitive screening.
- Analytical sample
- 7,023 participants
- Cognitive frailty at baseline
- 646 participants (9.2%)
- Profile 1
- 284 participants with impaired executive function and/or processing speed but preserved memory
- Profile 2
- 162 participants with memory impairment alone
- Profile 3
- 200 participants with memory impairment and executive function and/or processing speed difficulties
- Data source
- English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA)