Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct;33(10):2689-2694.
doi: 10.1007/s40520-021-01825-y. Epub 2021 Mar 25.

Influence of mid-life cognitive activity on cognitive function among men aged 68 years or older

Affiliations

Influence of mid-life cognitive activity on cognitive function among men aged 68 years or older

Allison Cotter et al. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

Background: Cognitive activity in early and late life has been associated with increased cognitive function among older adults. There is less evidence on the effects of midlife cognitive activity.

Aims: We examined the association of midlife cognitive activity with cognitive function after age 65.

Methods: We studied 78 men 68 years old or older. We asked participants to assess their current and midlife cognitive activity using adaptations of a measure created by Wilson et al., which includes reading, writing letters, visiting museums and other leisure activities. Our outcomes were validated measures of cognitive and overall function. We compared midlife cognitive activity to our outcome measures in simple bivariable analyses, then adjusted for demographic characteristics using linear regression.

Results: Our study population of older (mean age 74.8 years) men was primarily white (87%) and well-educated; 65% had at least some post high school education. Although 67% were retired, household income was high (24% < $30 k and 44% > $50 k). More midlife cognitive activity was related to more current cognitive activity (p = < .0001, r2 = 0.55339). However, midlife activity was not associated with measures of cognitive or overall function, adjusted analyses gave similar results.

Discussion: We did not find an association between midlife cognitive activity and later life function. However, the Wilson measure of cognitive activity that we used excludes instrumental cognitive activities such as dealing with finances or healthcare, likely underestimating cognitive activity for many participants.

Conclusion: Midlife cognitive activity was associated with late-life cognitive activity, suggesting efforts to increase late-life cognitive activity may need to start earlier in life. However, more robust measures of everyday cognitive activity might detect such an association.

Keywords: Cognition; Cognitive aging; Health behavior; Longitudinal studies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests: We have no known conflict of interest or competing interests

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Scatterplot of current (late-life) cognitive activity versus that at age 50 (midlife)

References

    1. Hudomiet P, Hurd MD, Rohwedder S. Dementia Prevalence in the United States in 2000 and 2012: Estimates Based on a Nationally Representative Study. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2018;73(suppl_1):S10–s9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alzheimer's Association. 2019 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Alzheimer's & Dementia. 2019;15(3):321–87. - PubMed
    1. Alzheimer's Association. 2018 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Alzheimer's & Dementia. 2018;14(3):367–429.
    1. Awang H, Mansor N, Nai Peng T, Nik Osman NA. Understanding ageing: fear of chronic diseases later in life. J Int Med Res. 2018;46(1):175–84. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wilson RS, Segawa E, Boyle PA, Bennett DA. Influence of late-life cognitive activity on cognitive health. Neurology. 2012;78(15):1123–9. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources