Background: Engagement in social activities has been suggested to protect against cognitive decline. (1,2)
Objective: To examine cognitive function and social involvement in the longitudinal comparative epidemiological study of elderly African Americans in Indianapolis and Yoruba in Nigeria.
Design: This is a cross-sectional analysis of data from the second incidence wave 1997-98) of the Indianapolis–Ibadan study of dementia. This report includes study subjects who were not previously diagnosed with dementia or cognitive impairment and who had the Community Screening Interview for Dementia (CSI”D”) at this wave.
Materials and Methods: The CSI”D” assesses cognitive function and includes a series of questions about social involvement. These questions were organized according to Bassuk et al (3) as follows: presence of a spouse, visits with three or more relatives or friends per month, attendance at religious services once or more per month, group membership, and regular social activities. Each of the above receives a score of one point, with a possible total of 5. An analysis of covariance was used to test the association between the social involvement and cognitive scores after adjusting for subject characteristics and interactions between involvement and both gender and age.
Results: There were 1,255 study subjects in Indianapolis and 1,225 in Ibadan. The average social involvement scores were 2.3 (SD=1.0) for Indianapolis and 1.9 (SD=0.9) for Ibadan. In Indianapolis there were significant interactions between involvement score and gender and age group. Cognitive scores were significantly correlated with involvement scores for women and for those in the age 75 or older age group. These interactions were not seen in Ibadan. Higher involvement scores are significantly correlated with higher cognitive scores in Ibadan.
Conclusion: Our results show that in both Indianapolis and in Ibadan social engagement or social activities are associated with cognitive function.
References 1.Fratiglioni, L, Wang,H, Ericsson, K, et al. Influence of Social Network on Occurrence of Dementia: A Community-Based Longitudinal Study. The Lancet 2000; 355:1315 – 1319.
2.Wang, HX, Karp A., Winblad B. et al. Late–Life Engagement in Social and Leisure Activities is Associated with a Decreased Risk of Dementia: A Longitudinal Study from the Kungsholmen Project. American Journal of Epidemiology 2002; 155: 1081 –1087.
3.Bassuk, S.S., Glass, T.A., and Berkman,L.F. Social Disengagement and Incident Cognitive Decline in Community-Dwelling Elderly Persons. Annals of Internal Medicine 1999; 131:165-173.
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