The association between social support and cognitive function in Mexican adults aged 50 and older

Abstract

Social support networks are crucial for the health of older adults; however, personal characteristics and time of life may diminish the protective effect of social support.

Objective: to determine if the presence of social support networks were associated with cognitive impairment among Mexican adults aged 50 or older and if this relationship was different based on age.

Method: This study analyzed data from the National Representation Survey performed in Mexico, Study on Global Ageing (SAGE) wave 1. Cognitive function was evaluated by a standardized test, social support was evaluated through latent class analysis (LCA). The LCA was run to obtain three subgroups of different Social Support Levels (SSL): low, medium, and high. Logistic regression models, stratified by age, were performed to analyze the association between SSL and cognitive function.

Results: For respondents ages 71-80 y/o, there was an inverse relationship with cognitive impairment for those with medium (OR 0.23, p=0.020) and high (OR 0.07, p=0.000) SSL in comparison with low SSL. While social support helped to improve cognitive function in older adults aged 71-80, this same association was not observed in adults of other ages. Those younger than 70 y/o may not need such a strong support network as a result of being more self-sufficient. After 80, social networks were not enough to help diminish the negative impact of cognitive impairment.

Conclusion: Social support could improve the cognitive function of adults ages 71 and 80; suggesting there could be a window of opportunity to improve cognitive functioning for this group.

Keywords: Cognitive function; Older adults; Social support; Study on Global Aging (SAGE).