Association Between Accelerated Multimorbidity and Age‐Related Cognitive Decline in Older Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging Participants without Dementia
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Objectives: To explore the association between rate of physical health deterioration, operationalized as rising multimorbidity overtime, and longitudinal decline in cognitive function in older adults without dementia. Design: Longitudinal (Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA)). Setting: Community. Participants: BLSA participants aged 65 and older followed for an average of 3 years and free of dementia or mild cognitive impairment ( MCI ) at baseline and follow‐up ( N = 756). Measurements: Standardized neurocognitive tests evaluating mental status, memory, executive function, processing speed, and verbal fluency were administered. Multimorbidity was assessed at each visit as number of diagnosed chronic diseases from a predefined list. Faster accumulation of chronic diseases was defined as upper quartile of rate of change in number of diseases over time (≥0.25 diseases/year). Results: Faster accumulation of chronic diseases was significantly associated with greater rate of decline on the Category ( P = .01) and Letter ( P = .01) Fluency Tests. Similar trends were also found for the Trail‐Making Test Parts A ( P = .08) and B ( P = .07); no association was found with rate of change in visual and verbal memory. Conclusion: Although further investigations are required to validate the results and fully understand the underlying mechanisms, these findings suggest that accelerated deterioration of physical health is associated with accelerated decline with aging in specific cognitive domains in older adults without dementia.
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In humans, the distinguishing criteria for normal versus pathological aging are CNS injury, amyloid plaques, neurodegeneration, neuropsychiatric conditions, dementia, and impaired performance on cognitive tests.
“In humans, the distinguishing criteria for normal vs pathological aging are: central nervous system (CNS) injury, amyloid plaques (based on positron emission tomography (PET)), neurodegeneration, neuropsychiatric conditions, dementia, and impaired performance on cognitive tests (Arani et al, 2015;Fabbri et al, 2016;Tegeler et al, 2016).”
From Microglia Priming with Aging and Stress (2017) · cites this paper as Fabbri et al, 2016
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Microglia Priming with Aging and Stress
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- Authors
- Fabbri, E., An, Y., Zoli, M., Tanaka, T., Simonsick, E. M., Kitner‐Triolo, M. H., Studenski, S. A., Resnick, S. M., & Ferrucci, L.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- University of Bologna (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Fabbri, Elisa
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-04-30
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 965-972
- ISSN
- 0002-8614 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5415
- PMC
- PMC4882249
- OpenAlex
- W2342455979
- Cited by
- 123
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 9.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging (03‐AG‐0325)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Chronic Disease Management Strategies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Cancer-related cognitive impairment studies
- Keywords
- multimorbidity, age-related cognitive decline, physical health deterioration, older adults without dementia, verbal fluency, executive function, Trail Making Test, Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Aging, Chronic Disease, Female, Health Status Indicators, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Baltimore, Comorbidity, Cognitive Dysfunction
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