Does Anxiety Affect Risk of Dementia? Findings From the Caerphilly Prospective Study
Gallacher J et al. - Anxiety is a risk factor for CIND and dementia. The extent to which the association is independent of depression and whether or not it is causal requires further study. Methods- Prospective study of men aged 48 to 67 years at baseline anxiety assessment; measured cognition 17 years later.
- Studied 1481 men who were either eligible for examination or were known to have dementia.
- Trait Anxiety was assessed using the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory.
- Psychological distress was assessed using the 30-item general health questionnaire.
- Cognitive screening was followed by a clinical examination.
- Medical notes and death certificates of those not seen were also examined.
- Outcomes were CIND and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV) dementia.
Results- Of 1160 men who were cognitively screened, 174 cases of CIND and 69 cases of dementia were identified.
- A further 21 cases of dementia were identified from medical records.
- After adjustment for age, vascular risk factors and premorbid cognitive function associations with higher anxiety (31st–95th centile) were for CIND odds ratio (OR) 2.31 (95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.20–4.44) and for dementia OR 2.37 (95% CI = 0.98–5.71).
- These associations were slightly stronger for nonvascular (OR = 2.45; 95% CI = 1.28–4.68) than for vascular impairment (OR = 1.94; 95% CI = 0.77–4.89).
- Analyses of change in cognitive performance, assessed by the Cambridge Cognitive Examination of the Elderly subscales found some evidence for decline in learning memory with higher anxiety score (bage adj = -0.291 (-0.551, -0.032), but not for any other subscale.
[more...]
|
|
|
