Dataset Information

Association of Cognitive Function With Cause-Specific Mortality in Middle and Older Age: Follow-up of Participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

ABSTRACT: We examined the little-tested associations between general cognitive function in middle and older age and later risk of death from chronic diseases. In the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2002-2012), 11,391 study participants who were 50-100 years of age at study induction underwent a battery of cognitive tests and provided a range of collateral data. In an analytical sample of 9,204 people (4,982 women), there were 1,488 deaths during follow-up (mean duration, 9.0 years). When we combined scores from 4 cognition tests that represented 3 acknowledged key domains of cognitive functioning (memory, executive function, and processing speed), cognition was inversely associated with deaths from cancer (per each 1-standard-deviation decrease in general cognitive function score, hazard ratio = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.33), cardiovascular disease (hazard ratio = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.55, 1.89), other causes (hazard ratio = 2.07, 95% CI: 1.79, 2.40), and respiratory illness (hazard ratio = 2.48, 95% CI: 2.12, 2.90). Controlling for a range of covariates, such as health behaviors and socioeconomic status, and left-censoring to explore reverse causality had very little impact on the strength of these relationships. These findings indicate that cognitive test scores can provide relatively simple indicators of the risk of death from an array of chronic diseases and that these associations appear to be independent of other commonly assessed risk factors.

SUBMITTER: Batty GD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4724091 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Association of Cognitive Function With Cause-Specific Mortality in Middle and Older Age: Follow-up of Participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Batty G David GD Deary Ian J IJ Zaninotto Paola P

American journal of epidemiology 20160201 3

We examined the little-tested associations between general cognitive function in middle and older age and later risk of death from chronic diseases. In the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2002-2012), 11,391 study participants who were 50-100 years of age at study induction underwent a battery of cognitive tests and provided a range of collateral data. In an analytical sample of 9,204 people (4,982 women), there were 1,488 deaths during follow-up (mean duration, 9.0 years). When we combined ...[more]

PMID: 26803665

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Project description:BackgroundVisual impairment has been associated with lower cognitive ability among older adults, yet little is known about whether improving visual function with cataract surgery would be associated with slower cognitive decline. This study aimed to assess whether trajectories of cognitive decline differed before and after cataract surgery and compare those trajectories between older adults with cataract surgery and without cataract.Methods and findingsData were drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Wave 1 (2002/03) until Wave 7 (2014/15). The study population consisted of 2,068 individuals who underwent cataract surgery between Wave 2 and Wave 6 as the treatment group and 3,636 individuals with no cataract as the control group. We included only respondents who took part in a minimum three waves. Propensity score matching method was used to match the individuals in the treatment group with those in the control group. After we put an "artificial" intervention point for the individuals in the control group at the point that the matched person has cataract surgery, spline method was used to identify differences in cognitive trajectories pre- and post-cataract surgery. In the treatment group, we found that cataract surgery was positively associated with episodic memory scores after controlling for the potential covariates (β = 4.23, p<0.001). Episodic memory scores declined with older age, but the decline in episodic memory scores was slower after cataract surgery (β = -0.05, p<0.001) than before cataract surgery (β = -0.1, p<0.001). Although the episodic memory among respondents in the control group before intervention (β = -0.08, p<0.001) declined slower than those in the intervention group (β = -0.1, p<0.001), the declines in episodic memory scores were similar in both groups after the intervention (control: β = -0.05, p<0.001; intervention: β = -0.05, p<0.001).ConclusionsCataract surgery may have a positive impact on trajectories of cognitive decline in later life. Further research is required to identify the mechanism to explain the association between cataract surgery and cognitive ageing, and whether early intervention towards vision correction results in a reduction in dementia risk.

Dataset Information

Association of Cognitive Function With Cause-Specific Mortality in Middle and Older Age: Follow-up of Participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Publications

Association of Cognitive Function With Cause-Specific Mortality in Middle and Older Age: Follow-up of Participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

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