The Relationship Between Cognitive Performance Using Tests Assessing a Range of Cognitive Domains and Future Dementia Diagnosis in a British Cohort: A Ten-Year Prospective Study.

BACKGROUND

Exploring the domains of cognitive function which are most strongly associated with future dementia may help with understanding risk factors for, and the natural history of dementia.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the association of performance on a range of cognitive tests (both global and domain specific) with subsequent diagnosis of dementia through health services in a population of relatively healthy men and women and risk of future dementia.

METHODS

We examined the association between performance on different cognitive tests as well as a global score and future dementia risk ascertained through health record linkage in a cohort of 8,581 individuals (aged 48-92 years) between 2004-2019 with almost 15 years follow-up (average of 10 years) before and after adjustment for socio-demographic, lifestyle, and health characteristics.

RESULTS

Those with poor performance for global cognition (bottom 10%) were almost four times as likely to receive a dementia diagnosis from health services over the next 15 years than those who performed well HR = 3.51 (95% CI 2.61, 4.71 p < 0.001) after adjustment for socioeconomic, lifestyle, and biological factors and also prevalent disease. Poor cognition performance in multiple tests was associated with 10-fold increased risk compared to those not performing poorly in any test HR = 10.82 (95% CI 6.85, 17.10 p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Deficits across multiple cognitive domains substantially increase risk of future dementia over and above neuropsychological test scores ten years prior to a clinical diagnosis. These findings may help further understanding of the natural history of dementia and how such measures could contribute to strengthening future models of dementia.