Association of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease with Cognitive Decline in Very Elderly Men

• Main Authors: Guoqing Zhou, Jinxia Liu, Fang Sun, Xiaofeng Xin, Lihui Duan, Xiaowei Zhu, Zhaorong Shi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Karger Publishers 2012-05-01
• Series: Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders Extra
• Subjects: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Cognitive decline; Very elderly men; Dementia
• Online Access: http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/338378

Aim: To determine the change in cognitive function in very elderly men with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) over a 3-year period relative to age- and education-matched controls. Methods: In this hospital-based, prospective case-control study, we evaluated a consecutive series of 110 very elderly men with COPD and 110 control subjects who were hospitalized between January and December 2007. All the subjects performed cognitive tests at baseline and underwent annual evaluations (for 3 years), which included the Mini-Mental State Examination, word list recall, delayed recall, animal category fluency, and the symbol digit modalities test. Results: In mixed-effects models adjusted for hypertension and coronary heart disease, COPD was associated with a more rapid rate of cognitive decline based on the Mini-Mental State Examination, word list recall, delayed recall, animal category fluency, and the symbol digit modalities test (all p Conclusion: COPD is associated with a more rapid rate of cognitive decline in very elderly persons.