Increases in Neuroticism May Be an Early Indicator of Dementia: A Coordinated Analysis

Abstract

Objectives: Although personality change is typically considered a symptom of dementia, some studies suggest that personality change may be an early indication of dementia. One prospective study found increases in neuroticism preceding dementia diagnosis (Yoneda, T., Rush, J., Berg, A. I., Johansson, B., & Piccinin, A. M. (2017). Trajectories of personality traits preceding dementia diagnosis. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 72, 922-931. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbw006). This study extends this research by examining trajectories of personality traits in additional longitudinal studies of aging.

Methods: Three independent series of latent growth curve models were fitted to data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam and Einstein Aging Study to estimate trajectories of personality traits in individuals with incident dementia diagnosis (total N = 210), in individuals with incident Mild Cognitive Impairment (N = 135), and in individuals who did not receive a diagnosis during follow-up periods (total N = 1740).

Results: Controlling for sex, age, education, depressive symptoms, and the interaction between age and education, growth curve analyses consistently revealed significant linear increases in neuroticism preceding dementia diagnosis in both datasets and in individuals with mild cognitive impairment. Analyses examining individuals without a diagnosis revealed nonsignificant change in neuroticism overtime.

Discussion: Replication of our previous work in 2 additional datasets provides compelling evidence that increases in neuroticism may be early indication of dementia, which can facilitate development of screening assessments.

Keywords: Longitudinal change; Mild cognitive impairment; Multi-study conceptual replication; Personality.

Figure 1.

Average trajectories of neuroticism. Note. The left plot shows trajectories of neuroticism based on years preceding dementia diagnosis for individuals with incident dementia from the Longitudinal Aging Study of Amsterdam (LASA) and Einstein Aging Study (EAS) datasets. The left plot also shows the average trajectory of neuroticism based on years preceding and following diagnosis of MCI for individuals from EAS. The right plot shows trajectories of neuroticism for individuals from LASA and EAS who did not receive a dementia diagnosis during the course of the study. Each line represents a male participant who entered the study at the mean age with the mean years of education for each study and no depressive symptoms.