IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v74y2019i6p919-926..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-term Associations Between Physical Frailty and Performance in Specific Cognitive Domains

Author

Listed:
  • David BuncePhD
  • Philip J BatterhamPhD
  • Andrew J MackinnonPhD
  • Shevaun NeupertPhD

Abstract

ObjectivesNo longitudinal epidemiological research has reported associations between physical frailty and performance in specific cognitive domains. Our aim was to investigate whether such associations existed in the absence of accompanying neurodegenerative disorders such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia.MethodWe addressed this issue in a population-based sample of 896 adults aged 70 years and older over 4 waves of data covering a 12-year period. Physical frailty was assessed and a cognitive battery included measures of processing speed, verbal fluency, face and word recognition, episodic memory and simple and choice reaction time (RT).ResultsLatent growth models showed frailty was associated with poorer baseline performance in processing speed, verbal fluency, simple and choice RT, and choice intraindividual RT variability. However, no significant effects of frailty on slopes of cognition were observed, suggesting that frailty was not associated with cognitive decline. Importantly, when the models took possible dementia into account, significant effects were retained suggesting that differences were not associated with dementia-related neurodegenerative disorders.DiscussionThe findings suggest that frailty-related cognitive deficits may exist independently of mechanisms underpinning neurodegenerative disorders such as MCI and dementia. If confirmed, this finding suggests a new avenue for preventative and therapeutic interventions in clinical and public health contexts for older adults.

Suggested Citation

  • David BuncePhD & Philip J BatterhamPhD & Andrew J MackinnonPhD & Shevaun NeupertPhD, 2019. "Long-term Associations Between Physical Frailty and Performance in Specific Cognitive Domains," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 74(6), pages 919-926.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:74:y:2019:i:6:p:919-926.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbx177
    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.

    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:74:y:2019:i:6:p:919-926.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.