Cognitive trajectories in older adults and the role of depressive symptoms: A 7-year follow-up study

Abstract

Objectives: To examine different trajectories of cognitive changes in elderly adults and explore the mediating role of depressive symptoms.

Design: A 7-year, community-based, prospective cohort study.

Setting: The downtown neighborhood of Shanghai, China.

Participants: A cohort of 394 older adults, with an average age of 71.8 years, was recruited in 2015 and has been reassessed every two years until 2021.

Methods: Latent Class Growth Analysis was used to model aging trajectories and Linear Mixed-Effect Models for Repeated Measures were used to estimate the least squares mean changes of cognition between subjects with depression (DEP⁺) and without (DEP^-) across all visits.

Results: Three cognitive trajectories were identified: the "successful aging" (SA) trajectory had the best and most consistent performance (n=229, 55.9%); the "normal aging" (NA) trajectory showed lower but stable cognition (n=141, 37.3%); while the "cognitive decline" (CD) trajectory displayed poor and declining cognition (n=24, 6.8%). Depressive symptoms were found to be influential across all trajectories. In the CD trajectory, the MoCA scores of the DEP⁺ group increased in within-group comparisons and were significantly higher than those of the DEP^- group at visits 1 and 3 in between-group comparisons. A similar trend was observed in the NA trajectory, though it did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions: Our research suggests that mild and decreasing depressive symptoms can be a reversible factor that might slow down the irreversible cognitive decline in the elderly. Therefore, we suggest that even mild depressive symptoms in the elderly should be monitored and detected.

Keywords: Cognitive decline; Community; Depressive symptoms; Elderly; Trajectory.