Social Participation and Cognitive Decline Among Community-dwelling Older Adults: A Community-based Longitudinal...

To examine whether social participation (SP) by older individuals is associated with cognitive decline (CD).

Participants were community-dwelling older adults aged 65 or older with both independent activities of daily living and normal cognitive performance at baseline (2,768 men and 3,325 women). CD was evaluated using the Cognitive Performance Scale. Logistic regression analysis stratified by gender was used to examine CD in relation to SP, with nonparticipation as reference. Age, family, body mass index, pensions, comorbidities, medications, alcohol, smoking, depression, self-rated health, and instrumental activities of daily living were used as covariates.

During the 3-year follow-up, 16.7% of eligible participants reported CD. After covariate adjustments, greater social group participation was associated with CD prevention for women only. Lessened negative CD effects were found in respondents active in these particular types of social outlets: neighborhood associations (odds ratio = 0.81, 95% confidence interval = 0.66-0.99) and local event groups (0.79, 0.63-0.99) for men, and hobby groups (0.70, 0.54-0.91) and volunteer groups (0.66, 0.45-0.96) for women.

Our results suggest that greater social group participation prevents CD in women, while the beneficial effect of each type of SP on cognition differs between genders. Determining which types of social groups are best for community-dwelling older people's participation based on gender may help them maintain their cognitive functioning abilities.