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. 2024 Sep 1;79(9):glae118.
doi: 10.1093/gerona/glae118.

Association of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neuropathologies With Functional Disability in Persons With and Without Dementia

Jose M Farfel  1   2 , Ana W Capuano  1   3 , Aron S Buchman  1   3 , Julie A Schneider  1   2 , David A Bennett  1   3
Affiliations

Association of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neuropathologies With Functional Disability in Persons With and Without Dementia

Jose M Farfel et al. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. .

Abstract

Background: Dementia results from multiple neuropathologies causing cognitive impairment sufficiently severe to affect functional status. However, these pathologies and functional impairment are common in persons without dementia. We examined the association of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and multiple other neuropathologies with instrumental and basic activities of daily living in persons with and without dementia.

Methods: Participants were 1 509 deceased from the Religious Orders Study or Rush Memory and Aging Project. Pathologic AD and 3 other AD indices were examined, in addition to 4 non-AD neurodegenerative pathologies: cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), hippocampal sclerosis, TDP-43, and Lewy bodies, and 4 cerebrovascular pathologies: gross- and microinfarctions, athero- and arteriolosclerosis. Functional assessment included Lawton and Katz Index Instrumental and Basic Activities of Daily Living (IADL and BADL). Ordinal regression models adjusted for age, sex, and education were used to examine the association of neuropathologies with IADL and BADL.

Results: Alzheimer's disease and the other neuropathologies were associated with impaired IADL (all ps < .001) and with impaired BADL (ps < .01), except for atherosclerosis and CAA, which were not associated with BADL. The effects of most neuropathologies were largely affected by dementia. However, small effects on IADL remained for PHF-tau tangles after adjusting models for dementia. Direct effects of gross infarcts on IADL and BADL and of microinfarcts on BADL remained unchanged after adjusting the models for dementia.

Conclusions: Alzheimer's disease and all other neuropathologies are strongly associated with functional disability. The association of most neuropathologies with disability was eliminated or attenuated by dementia, except for gross infarcts and microinfarcts.

Keywords: Basic activities of daily living; Cognition; Functional status; Instrumental activities of daily living; Neuropathology.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Association of neuropathologies with instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Total effect was adjusted for demographics (age at death, sex and education); direct effect was adjusted for demographics and dementia status. The odds ratios for continuous variables (β-amyloid load and PHF-tau tangle density) represent in the figure the odds of the median value compared to zero (no pathology).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Association of neuropathologies with basic activities of daily living (BADL). Total effect was adjusted for demographics (age at death, sex and education); direct effect was adjusted for demographics and dementia status. The odds ratios for continuous variables (β-amyloid load and PHF-tau tangle density) represent in the figure the odds of the median value compared to zero (no pathology).
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