IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v72y2017i1p25-37..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lifecourse Activity Participation From Early, Mid, and Later Adulthood as Determinants of Cognitive Aging: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921

Author

Listed:
  • Alan J. Gow
  • Alison Pattie
  • Ian J. Deary

Abstract

Objectives:To examine potential sensitive periods for activity participation across adulthood to reduce cognitive decline and to determine whether associations persist after accounting for the lifetime stability of cognitive ability.Method:The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 is a longitudinal study of cognitive aging. Participants were born in 1921 and most completed a mental ability test at the age of 11 years. Cognitive assessments were completed at mean ages 79 (N = 550), 83 (N = 321), 87 (N = 235), and 90 years (N = 129). Participants provided retrospective details of their activity participation for young (20–35 years), mid (40–55 years), and later adulthood (60–75 years), and contemporaneously at age 79.Results:Associations between activity and the level of, and change in, cognitive ability in old age were examined with latent growth curve models. Accounting for demographics and childhood cognitive ability, engagement in leisure activities in midlife was positively associated with cognitive ability level (path coefficient = .32), whereas higher physical activity in later adulthood was associated with less cognitive decline (.27).Discussion:The findings support a lifecourse approach in identifying determinants of cognitive aging; leisure and physical activity during different periods of adulthood may enhance cognitive abilities or reduce decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan J. Gow & Alison Pattie & Ian J. Deary, 2017. "Lifecourse Activity Participation From Early, Mid, and Later Adulthood as Determinants of Cognitive Aging: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(1), pages 25-37.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:72:y:2017:i:1:p:25-37.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbw124
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ross Andel & Merril Silverstein & Ingemar Kåreholt, 2015. "The Role of Midlife Occupational Complexity and Leisure Activity in Late-Life Cognition," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 70(2), pages 314-321.
    2. Teresa Lee & Darren M. Lipnicki & John D. Crawford & Julie D. Henry & Julian N. Trollor & David Ames & Margaret J. Wright & Perminder S. Sachdev & OATS Research Team, 2014. "Leisure Activity, Health, and Medical Correlates of Neurocognitive Performance Among Monozygotic Twins: The Older Australian Twins Study," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 69(4), pages 514-522.
    3. Richards, Marcus & Hardy, Rebecca & Wadsworth, Michael E. J., 2003. "Does active leisure protect cognition? Evidence from a national birth cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 785-792, February.
    4. Paolo Ghisletta & Jean-François Bickel & Martin Lövdén, 2006. "Does Activity Engagement Protect Against Cognitive Decline in Old Age? Methodological and Analytical Considerations," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 61(5), pages 253-261.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. G Sophia Borgeest & Richard N Henson & Meredith Shafto & David Samu & Cam-CAN & Rogier A Kievit, 2020. "Greater lifestyle engagement is associated with better age-adjusted cognitive abilities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-24, May.
    2. Linda B HassingPhD & Shevaun NeupertPhDDecision Editor, 2020. "Gender Differences in the Association Between Leisure Activity in Adulthood and Cognitive Function in Old Age: A Prospective Longitudinal Population-Based Study," Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(1), pages 11-20.
    3. Giovanni Sala & Daniela Jopp & Fernand Gobet & Madoka Ogawa & Yoshiko Ishioka & Yukie Masui & Hiroki Inagaki & Takeshi Nakagawa & Saori Yasumoto & Tatsuro Ishizaki & Yasumichi Arai & Kazunori Ikebe & , 2019. "The impact of leisure activities on older adults’ cognitive function, physical function, and mental health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Change Zhu & Christine Walsh & Lulin Zhou & Xinjie Zhang, 2023. "Latent Classification Analysis of Leisure Activities and Their Impact on ADL, IADL and Cognitive Ability of Older Adults Based on CLHLS (2008–2018)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-19, January.
    2. Kimiko Tomioka & Norio Kurumatani & Hiroshi Hosoi, 2018. "Social Participation and Cognitive Decline Among Community-dwelling Older Adults: A Community-based Longitudinal Study," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 799-806.
    3. Daisuke Kimura & Ken Nakatani & Tokunori Takeda & Takashi Fujita & Nobuyuki Sunahara & Katsumi Inoue & Masako Notoya, 2015. "Analysis of Causal Relationships by Structural Equation Modeling to Determine the Factors Influencing Cognitive Function in Elderly People in Japan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Silvana Miceli & Laura Maniscalco & Domenica Matranga, 2019. "Social networks and social activities promote cognitive functioning in both concurrent and prospective time: evidence from the SHARE survey," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 145-154, June.
    5. Ariane Bertogg & Anja K. Leist, 2023. "Gendered life courses and cognitive functioning in later life: the role of context-specific gender norms and lifetime employment," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Lee, Yeonjin & Jean Yeung, Wei-Jun, 2019. "Gender matters: Productive social engagement and the subsequent cognitive changes among older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 87-95.
    7. Gorman, Emma, 2017. "Schooling, occupation and cognitive function: Evidence from compulsory schooling laws," SocArXiv t647a, Center for Open Science.
    8. Lenzen, Sabrina & Gannon, Brenda & Rose, Christiern, 2020. "A dynamic microeconomic analysis of the impact of physical activity on cognition among older people," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    9. Desjardins, Richard & Warnke, Arne Jonas, 2012. "Ageing and Skills: A Review and Analysis of Skill Gain and Skill Loss Over the Lifespan and Over Time," EconStor Preprints 57089, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Antonella Lopez & Alessandro Germani & Luigi Tinella & Alessandro Oronzo Caffò & Albert Postma & Andrea Bosco, 2021. "The Road More Travelled: The Differential Effects of Spatial Experience in Young and Elderly Participants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-20, January.
    11. Giovanni Sala & Daniela Jopp & Fernand Gobet & Madoka Ogawa & Yoshiko Ishioka & Yukie Masui & Hiroki Inagaki & Takeshi Nakagawa & Saori Yasumoto & Tatsuro Ishizaki & Yasumichi Arai & Kazunori Ikebe & , 2019. "The impact of leisure activities on older adults’ cognitive function, physical function, and mental health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, November.
    12. Kesavayuth, Dusanee & Liang, Yufang & Zikos, Vasileios, 2018. "An active lifestyle and cognitive function: Evidence from China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 183-191.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:72:y:2017:i:1:p:25-37.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.