Program in Public Health and Department of Family, Population, and Preventive Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA,
Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA.
Neuroepidemiology. 2020;54(6):446-453. doi: 10.1159/000510133. Epub 2020 Oct 5.
Undetected Alzheimer's disease (AD) and stroke neuropathology is believed to account for a large proportion of decline in cognitive performance that is attributed to normal aging. This study examined the amount of variance in age-related cognitive change that is accounted for by AD and stroke using a novel pattern recognition protocol.
Secondary analyses of data collected for the Health and Retirement Study (N = 17,579) were used to objectively characterize patterns of cognitive decline associated with AD and stroke. The rate of decline in episodic memory and orientation was the outcome of interest, while algorithms indicative of AD and stroke pathology were the predictors of interest.
The average age of the sample was 67.54 ± 10.45 years at baseline, and they completed, on average, 14.20 ± 3.56 years of follow-up. After adjusting for demographics, AD and stroke accounted for approximately half of age-associated decline in cognition (51.07-55.6% for orientation and episodic memory, respectively) and explained variance attributed to random slopes in longitudinal multilevel models.
The results of this study suggested that approximately half of the cognitive decline usually attributed to normal aging are more characteristic of AD and stroke.
未被发现的阿尔茨海默病（AD）和中风神经病理学被认为是导致认知表现下降的主要原因，而这种下降归因于正常衰老。本研究使用一种新的模式识别协议，检查 AD 和中风导致与年龄相关的认知变化的差异量。
对健康与退休研究（N=17579）收集的数据进行二次分析，以客观描述与 AD 和中风相关的认知衰退模式。情节记忆和定向的下降率是感兴趣的结果，而指示 AD 和中风病理学的算法是感兴趣的预测指标。
样本的平均年龄为基线时的 67.54±10.45 岁，他们平均完成了 14.20±3.56 年的随访。在调整人口统计学因素后，AD 和中风分别占认知与年龄相关下降的约一半（定向和情节记忆分别为 51.07-55.6%），并解释了纵向多层次模型中归因于随机斜率的方差。
本研究结果表明，通常归因于正常衰老的认知下降约有一半更符合 AD 和中风的特征。
