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. 2021 Sep;47(3):611-637.
doi: 10.1111/padr.12409. Epub 2021 Jul 13.

Cohort and Period Effects as Explanations for Declining Dementia Trends and Cognitive Aging

Sean A P Clouston  1 , Graciela Muñiz Terrera  2 , Joseph Lee Rodgers  3 , Patrick O'Keefe  4 , Frank Mann  1 , Nathan A Lewis  5 , Linda Wänström  6 , Jeffrey Kaye  7 , Scott M Hofer  5
Affiliations

Cohort and Period Effects as Explanations for Declining Dementia Trends and Cognitive Aging

Sean A P Clouston et al. Popul Dev Rev. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Studies have reported that the age-adjusted incidence of cognitive impairment and dementia may have decreased over the past two decades. Aging is the predominant risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and for neurocognitive decline. However, aging cannot explain changes in overall age-adjusted incidence of dementia. The objective of this position paper was to describe the potential for cohort and period effects in cognitive decline and incidence of dementia. Cohort effects have long been reported in demographic literature, but starting in the early 1980s, researchers began reporting cohort trends in cognitive function. At the same time, period effects have emerged in economic factors and stressors in early and midlife that may result in reduced cognitive dysfunction. Recognizing that aging individuals today were once children and adolescents, and that research has clearly noted that childhood cognitive performance is a primary determinant of old-age cognitive performance, this is the first study that proposes the need to connect known cohort effects in childhood cognition with differences in late-life functioning.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Theoretical differences in fluid cognitive performance commonly labelled the Flynn effect by year of birth
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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