Differential Social Cognitive Performance in Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia.

OBJECTIVE: To study general and subdomain performance in measures of social cognition in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia, and to explore associations between social cognitive and neuropsychological subdomains. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of participants from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study (MAS). SETTING: Current data was collected in 2016-2018. PARTICIPANTS: Community-dwelling older adults (n=321) aged 80 years and above, with no history of neurological or psychiatric conditions. Participants had dementia, MCI, or no cognitive impairment (NCI). MEASURES: Social cognition was indexed using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index - Perspective Taking (IRI-PT) and Empathic Concern (IRI-EC) subscales, and the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT). These subdomain scores were used to make a composite social cognition score. Apathy was measured via the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES). Neurocognitive function was indexed using the Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination v3 (ACE-3). RESULTS: Dementia was associated with poorer overall social cognitive composite performance. MCI and dementia participants performed poorer on RMET and recognition of anger, disgust and happiness on ERT. RMET and ERT disgust remained significant after controlling for relevant covariates. Dementia participants performed poorer than MCI and NCI on the IRI-PT, IRI-EC, and AES. AES remained significant after regression. RMET was correlated with ACE-3 Fluency and/or Language in all study groups. CONCLUSIONS: MCI is associated with poorer scores in specific social cognitive assessments. Dementia is somewhat associated with poorer scores in informant-rated social cognition scales, though this is no longer significant after accounting for apathy.

Memory decline in older individuals predicts an objective indicator of oral health: findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.

BACKGROUND: Growing evidence suggests that there is an association between poor oral health and cognitive function in late adulthood. However, most studies to date have relied on cross-sectional research methods that do not permit inferences about the temporality of any association. Moreover, the few longitudinal studies that do exist have typically relied on small samples and quite limited cognitive or oral health assessments. The aim of the present study was therefore designed to provide the first direct evaluation of whether cognitive function is predictive of poor oral health in older adults. METHODS: This longitudinal research included data from 339 participants aged 70 years or older from The Sydney Memory and Ageing Study (MAS), a large cohort of healthy community-dwelling older adults. Cognitive function was assessed using a battery of tests at baseline (Wave 1) in 2005 and six years later (Wave 4) in 2011. In 2015 (Wave 6), participants were assessed for oral health using the Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT), number of functional occluding pairs of natural teeth and sublingual resting saliva pH (SRSpH). Ordinal least squares regression analysis was used to model the effect of cognitive function on total OHAT score, and binomial logistic regression used for SRSpH and occluding pairs of functional teeth. RESULTS: Two models were tested. In the partially adjusted model, age, gender and years of education were included. The fully adjusted model additionally included medical conditions, general health, depression, smoking, alcohol consumption, functionality, and dental care utilization. The key finding to emerge was that a six-year change in memory (from Wave 1 to Wave 4) was associated with lower sublingual resting saliva pH at Wave 6 in partially (Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.65) and fully adjusted model (OR = 0.63). CONCLUSIONS: This longitudinal study provides further evidence that a relationship between cognitive function and oral health exists, and also points to this relationship potentially being bi-directional, as previous evidence suggests. The findings from the study also suggest that older adults who present with greater than normal memory decline at an earlier point in life were more likely to experience poor oral health when this was evaluated at a later time-point, four years later.

Prospective memory impairment in long-term opiate users.

RATIONALE: Opiate use is associated with a range of neurological and cognitive deficits. However, to date, no studies have assessed whether these cognitive deficits extend to the ability to perform intended actions in the future (i.e. prospective memory). Reduced ability in this area might be anticipated due to impaired executive functions and episodic memory associated with long-term opiate use. OBJECTIVES: The main objectives of this study are to assess the performance of long-term opiate users on a laboratory measure of prospective memory which closely simulates the types of prospective memory tasks encountered in everyday life ('Virtual Week') and to investigate the extent to which prospective memory performance is related to executive functions and episodic memory ability. METHODS: Twenty-six long-term heroin users enrolled in an opiate substitution program, and 30 controls with no previous history of drug use were tested on Virtual Week. Retrospective memory and executive functions were also assessed. RESULTS: Long-term opiate users were significantly impaired on prospective memory performance compared with controls (p = 0.002, η(2) p = 0.17), and these deficits did not vary as a function of prospective memory task type (regular, irregular, event, time). The findings also suggest that retrospective memory difficulties contribute to the prospective memory difficulties seen in opiate users (r s = 0.78, p < 0.001) but that executive dysfunction is less influential. CONCLUSIONS: Prospective memory is sensitive to long-term opiate use. Importantly, opiate users suffer from generalised deficits in prospective memory, regardless of the task demands, which may have significant implications for day-to-day functioning. These results may therefore contribute to the development of clinical intervention strategies to reduce the negative impact of prospective memory failures in daily life.