Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York.
Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2019 Mar 14;74(4):519-527. doi: 10.1093/gerona/gly046.
Grip strength and cognitive function reflect upper body muscle strength and mental capacities. Cross-sectional research has suggested that in old age these two processes are moderately to highly associated, and that an underlying common cause drives this association. Our aim was to synthesize and evaluate longitudinal research addressing whether changes in grip strength are associated with changes in cognitive function in healthy older adults.
We systematically reviewed English-language research investigating the longitudinal association between repeated measures of grip strength and of cognitive function in community-dwelling older adults to evaluate the extent to which the two indices decline concurrently. We used four search engines: Embase, PsychINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science.
Of 459 unique citations, 6 met our full criteria: 4 studies reported a longitudinal association between rates of change in grip strength and cognitive function in older adults, 2 of which reported the magnitudes of these associations as ranging from low to moderate; 2 studies reported significant cross-sectional but not longitudinal associations among rates of change. All studies concluded that cognitive function and grip strength declined, on average, with increasing age, although with little to no evidence for longitudinal associations among rates of change.
Future research is urged to expand the study of physical and cognitive associations in old age using a within-person and multi-study integrative approach to evaluate the reliability of longitudinal results with greater emphasis on the magnitude of this association.
CRD42016038544.
握力和认知功能反映了上肢肌肉力量和心理能力。横断面研究表明，在老年期，这两个过程中度到高度相关，并且存在一个潜在的共同原因驱动这种关联。我们的目的是综合和评估关于健康老年人握力变化是否与认知功能变化相关的纵向研究。
我们系统地回顾了调查社区居住的老年人中重复测量握力和认知功能之间纵向关联的英文研究，以评估这两个指标同时下降的程度。我们使用了四个搜索引擎：Embase、PsychINFO、PubMed 和 Web of Science。
在 459 篇独特的引用中，有 6 篇符合我们的全部标准：4 项研究报告了老年人握力和认知功能变化率之间的纵向关联，其中 2 项报告了这些关联的幅度从低到中等；2 项研究报告了变化率之间的显著横断面但非纵向关联。所有研究都得出结论，认知功能和握力随着年龄的增长而平均下降，尽管几乎没有证据表明变化率之间存在纵向关联。
未来的研究迫切需要使用个体内和多研究综合方法扩展对老年期身体和认知关联的研究，以评估纵向结果的可靠性，并更加重视这种关联的幅度。
CRD42016038544。
