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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2006;21:65–73 Accepted after revision: September 3, 2005
Published online: November 23, 2005
DOI: 10.1159/000089919
Key Words subjects with high scores in all or in two of the compo-
Dementia risk Leisure activities, mental, physical and nents (RR of dementia = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.36–0.78). Conclu-
social components Elderly population sions: These findings suggest that a broad spectrum of
activities containing more than one of the components
seems to be more beneficial than to be engaged in only
Abstract one type of activity.
Background: There is accumulating evidence in the lit- Copyright © 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel
and then discussed with a third author (L.F.) in order to reach con- The three components were highly correlated. The Pearson cor-
sensus. The grading of the three components was coded as: 0 = none, relation coefficients were 0.76 between the mental and social com-
1 = low, 2 = moderate, 3 = high (table 1). ponent score sums, 0.77 between the physical and social and 0.58
To validate the scoring, 13 cognitively intact, elderly raters (7 between the physical and mental component score sums.
men, 6 women), aged 75 years or more, but not participants in the
Kungsholmen study, were asked to individually fill in a small ques- Covariates
tionnaire containing a list of all 29 activities together with scoring We used all covariates with available baseline information from
instructions. The overall correlation between the consensus ratings our database that may have acted as possible confounders: age, sex,
of the authors and the means of the elderly subjects’ ratings was education, cognitive functioning, comorbidity, depressive symp-
0.86. Reliability analyses were performed. For all three components toms and physical function at baseline examination. Information
taken together, Cronbach’s was high; 0.90 indicating high inter- about age and sex was derived from the National Population Reg-
rater consistency. Cronbach’s values for each of the components ister. Information about highest level of formal education was col-
were: 0.89 for the mental component, 0.95 for the physical compo- lected through personal interview. Cognitive function was mea-
nent and 0.82 for the social component. Since the disagreements sured by using MMSE [27] since there is a global impairment of
between researchers and elderly raters mainly concerned the social cognitive functioning in the preclinical phase of AD [28]. Depres-
component of activities, four final ratings (handicraft, travels, sing- sive symptoms were assessed by two self-reported symptoms: being
ing and collections) were changed to better fit the elderly raters’ in a low mood and/or often feeling lonely. Both of these symptoms
opinion. Table 1 shows the final decision regarding the component are included in the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression
scores for the 29 activities and the frequency of each activity. Scale [29]. Physical function was defined as disability in at least
Mental, Physical and Social Components Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2006;21:65–73 67
in Leisure Activities and Dementia Risk
one of the basic activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, toilet- Table 2. Baseline characteristics of the study population (n = 732)
ing, continence, feeding or transfer [30]. and of the incident dementia cases detected at second follow-up
Data of previous diseases were obtained by reviewing hospital (1994–1996)
discharge diagnoses through the Stockholm Computerized Inpa-
tient Register System. These diagnoses were made according to Characteristic Participants Incident dementia
the International Classification of Disease, 8th edition [31]: coro- (n = 732) cases (n = 123)
nary heart disease (ICD-8: 410–414), cerebrovascular disease
(ICD-8: 430–438), diabetes mellitus (ICD-8: 250), malignancy n n %
(ICD-8: 140–208 and 230–239) and hip fracture (ICD-8: 820).
Comorbidity was defined as subjects who had any of these five Age groups
diseases. 75–79 364 36 9.9
80–84 232 55 23.7
Statistical Analyses 85+ 136 32 23.5
To evaluate the differences in baseline characteristics between Sex
participants and drop-outs, logistic regression was used. Cox pro- Female 543 93 17.1
portional hazards regressions were performed to estimate the rela- Male 189 30 15.9
tive risk (RR) of incident AD and dementia associated with mental,
physical and social components in the different leisure activities. Education1
The mental, physical and social components were analysed in ^7 years 386 70 18.1
the following ways: 68 years 343 53 15.5
(1) We first intended to tap the intensity of involvement in each MMSE score
component by using a threshold to signify moderate/high involve- 24–26 178 38 21.3
ment: for each person and each component (mental, physical and 27–30 554 85 15.3
social), the number of moderately/highly (2–3) scored activities
were summed up separately and then divided into three categories. Comorbidity1
The analyses were performed for each component, contrasting sub- Yes 179 46 25.7
jects with one, and subjects with two or more moderately/highly No 550 77 14.0
scored activities with subjects without any moderately/highly
Depressive symptom1
scored activity.
Yes 201 53 26.4
(2) In order to measure the accumulation of each component
No 528 70 13.3
across the range of activities, the rated scores were added to a sum
of scores for each person and each component. This sum score was Physical dependence2
analysed using (a) the continuous variable, (b) four groups with a Yes 132 30 22.7
similar number of cases and (c) two groups dichotomized according No 592 93 15.7
to the median value.
(3) To capture the combined effect of the three components in Number of activities
reducing the dementia risk, combinations of the mental, physical 0 153 37 24.2
and social components were created using the sum score for each 1–2 400 67 16.8
component after dichotomization according to the median value. 3–7 179 19 10.6
All of the associations studied were first assessed using simple 1
models including age and sex, and then adjustments for all covari- For 3 subjects, information was missing.
2
ates described above were carried out. Age and MMSE score were For 8 subjects, information was missing.
entered into the models as continuous variables. Education was
entered as a categorical variable (112 years, 8–12 years and
!8 years of schooling). Sex (female vs. male), comorbidity (the
presence of coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, dia-
betes mellitus, malignancy or hip fracture vs. the presence of none
of them), depressive symptoms (yes vs. no) and physical function- sex, education, cognitive functioning, depressive symp-
ing (dependent vs. independent) were entered as dichotomous toms and physical functioning.
variables. A total of 123 subjects developed clinical dementia
during the second follow-up. Table 2 shows the baseline
characteristics of the study population and incident de-
Results mentia cases.
The multi-adjusted RRs of dementia associated with
The baseline study population consisted of 776 sub- participation in 1–2 activities, and participation in
jects, but 44 persons refused second follow-up examina- 3–7 activities, versus no participation were 0.77 (95%
tion. While non-participants had less comorbidity than CI: 0.51–1.15) and 0.56 (95% CI: 0.31–0.99), respec-
participants, there were no differences with respect to age, tively.
For each component (mental, physical and social) two Cox regression models were performed: one analysing
the component score sum as a 4-category indicator variable, and the second as a dichotomous variable.
1
Adjusted for age, sex, education, baseline MMSE score, comorbidity and physical functioning.
2
Adjusted for age, sex, education, baseline MMSE score, comorbidity, physical functioning and depressive
symptoms.
To examine if moderate/high-scored activities were 18, the physical score sums from 0 to 12 and the social
most beneficial, the number of moderately/highly scored score sums from 0 to 13. The mental component differed
activities were added up and then divided into three cat- from the physical and social components in that it had no
egories. In comparison to subjects with none or low (0–1) subjects with a 0 score, aside from the group of subjects
involvement in the mental component, persons who had who participated in no activities at all. All of the three
one moderately/highly (2–3) rated activity had a multi- components’ score sum distributions were positively
adjusted RR of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.57–1.41), and persons skewed.
with two or more moderately/highly rated activities had When first analysed as continuous variables, multi-ad-
an RR of 0.67 (95% CI: 0.42–1.05). Regarding the phys- justed RRs indicated that greater score sums in the men-
ical component, the multi-adjusted RR of dementia was tal component (RR = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.87–1.00) and phys-
0.87 (95% CI: 0.55–1.39) for subjects engaged in one ical component (RR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.77–0.99) appeared
moderately/highly rated activity and 0.44 (95% CI: 0.14– to lower the risk of dementia. Higher score sums in the
1.39) for being engaged in two or more moderately/high- social component were not significantly associated with
ly rated activities. For the social component, the multi- lower risk of dementia when analysed continuously
adjusted RR associated with engagement in one moder- (RR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.87–1.04).
ately/highly rated activity was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.48–1.18) All of the components’ score sum distributions were
and the RR associated with two or more moderately/high- then categorized into approximate quartiles (table 3).
ly rated activities was 0.94 (95% CI: 0.55–1.61). Having mental component score sums above 3 was sig-
Next, the total scores of each of the three components nificantly associated with a decreased risk of dementia,
were examined. The mental score sums ranged from 0 to when controlled for age, sex, education, baseline MMSE
Mental, Physical and Social Components Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2006;21:65–73 69
in Leisure Activities and Dementia Risk
Table 4. RRs of dementia associated with combinations of higher or lower mental, physical and social score
sums
score, comorbidity and physical functioning. When the only two of the three components (mental and physical;
depressive symptoms (feeling alone and in a low mood) physical and social) were also significantly protected
were added to the model, the association did not reach against dementia. Due to the small number of cases in
the 0.05 level of significance. The mental component some of the combinations, subjects were merged into four
score sum, categorized in four grades, showed a signifi- categories: (1) low in all three components, (2) one high,
cant trend (p = 0.043) in relation to dementia risk. Having (3) two high, or (4) three high. The results are shown in
a physical and social component score larger than or table 4. Having high scores in two or three of the compo-
equal to 1 was significantly related to a lower risk of de- nents was associated with a significant reduction in risk
mentia after adjustments for all covariates. There was no of dementia. When those having higher scores on two or
trend with regard to the four score sum categories for the more of the components were combined (category 3 and
physical or the social components. The basic adjusted 4 together), the RR ratio fell to almost half (RR = 0.53,
(only age and sex adjustments) results were similar. 95% CI: 0.36–0.78).
Table 3 also shows the RRs of dementia in relation to The following additional analyses were performed to
the sum of scores of mental, physical and social compo- verify the results: although we had excluded subjects with
nents using the approximate medians for dichotomiza- MMSE scores ^23, scores above that level could still in-
tion. The median for the mental component score was 4, fluence the studied relation. We therefore performed ad-
for the physical component 1 and for the social compo- ditional analyses for subjects whose MMSE scores were
nent 2. When analysed one by one, all three components more than 26 at baseline examination. The results were
were protective against dementia, although the mental largely identical for the mental and physical component
score was not entirely significant when adjusted for all score sums and showed a similar tendency for the social
covariates. component score sum. Finally, since there were quite a
We further combined the dichotomized score sums of few subjects (n = 153) who did not report any activity at
the three components into eight groups, with the purpose all and might have been qualitatively different from the
of investigating if some specific activity combinations other combinations, additional analyses were performed
were more beneficial. The dichotomizations were based treating these subjects as a separate category. The results
on the median values described above. These results (not and overall pattern did not change, and the ‘no activity
shown) indicated that having high overall scores on all group’ had similar RRs as the group who had a lower
three components was associated with significantly lower score in all three components. We also performed extra
risks of dementia when all covariates were taken into ac- analyses excluding the subjects who did not report any
count. In two combinations, subjects who scored high on activities. Similar results were observed.
Mental, Physical and Social Components Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2006;21:65–73 71
in Leisure Activities and Dementia Risk
nitive functioning was adjusted for, and activity data This study confirms earlier results stating that engage-
were collected on average 6 years before dementia diag- ment in leisure activities with mental, social and physical
nosis and a minimum of 3 years before dementia onset, content in late life is associated with decreased risk of
there still exists an uncertainty about how early in the dementia. Furthermore, it was found that small contribu-
preclinical phase of dementia relevant cognitive deficits tions of the mental, physical or social components mat-
appear. It is therefore premature to interpret these results tered when accumulated. Because few elderly engaged in
as causal or even as delaying the disease onset, since less- more vigorous exercise, the benefit of light physical com-
er leisure engagement may be a consequence of early ponents in activities that are not primarily physical is
symptoms. However, a prospective study as extended as especially noteworthy.
21 years has recently reported results similar to ours [19]. The results also indicate that engaging in activities that
Furthermore, Bennett et al. [37] investigated post-mor- cover more than one of the mental, physical and social
tem data in the Religious Order Study and found that the components seems to be more beneficial than to be en-
relation between senile plaques and level of cognitive gaged in only one type of activity. Implications for public
function differed by level of education, suggesting that health and community may very well be that making dif-
differences in lifestyle may affect cognitive reserve by ferent types of activities more accessible to elderly per-
partially mediating the relationship between brain dam- sons could reduce the risk of developing dementia.
age and the clinical manifestation of AD. Additionally,
in the MRC National Survey of Health and Develop-
ment, Richards et al. [8] had the opportunity to control Acknowledgements
for the influence of IQ at 15 years of age, when studying
We thank all members of the Kungsholmen Project study group
active leisure and cognition. This research group drew the
for their cooperation in data collection and management. This re-
conclusion that it was unlikely that the finding of an as- search was supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for
sociation between active leisure and cognition was a re- Working Life and Social Research (No. 2003-0386) and the Amer-
flection of reverse causality. ican Alzheimer foundation.
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