Education and the course of cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease - PubMed (original) (raw)

Education and the course of cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease

R S Wilson et al. Neurology. 2004.

Abstract

Objective: To test the hypothesis that higher level of education is related to more rapid cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease (AD).

Methods: Participants are older persons with clinically diagnosed AD recruited from health care facilities in the Chicago area. At 6-month intervals for up to 4 years, they underwent uniform structured clinical evaluations that included administration of nine cognitive performance tests from which a composite measure of global cognition was derived. Analyses are based on 494 persons with follow-up data (89.3% of those eligible). In mixed models that allowed for linear and nonlinear decline, the authors first accounted for the effects of age on cognition and then tested the relation of education to rate of cognitive decline.

Results: Global cognitive decline had linear and nonlinear components, resulting in a gradually accelerating course of decline. Age was related to linear but not nonlinear decline, with more rapid decline observed in younger compared with older persons. Higher educational level was related to more rapid global cognitive decline, as hypothesized, with education related to the nonlinear but not the linear component of decline.

Conclusion: Higher educational attainment is associated with a slightly accelerated rate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources