Autores: Brent J Small; Roger A. Dixon; John J. McArdle; kevin J. Grimm.
Resumen
Objective. Do lifestyle activities buffer normal againg-related declines in cognitive performace? The energing literature will benefit from theoretically broadre mesuremente of both lifestyle activities and analyses. We examine the temporal ordering of changes in lifestyle activities and changues in cognitive neuropsychological performace in older adults. Method: We assembled data (n= 952) across a 12-year (5-wave) period from the Victoria Longitudinal study. Latent change score models were applied to examine wheter (and in which temporal order) changues in physical, social, or cognitive lifestyle activities were related to changes in threedomains of cognitive performace. Results: Two main results reflect the dynamic coupling among changues in lifestyle activities and cognition. First, reductions in cognitive lifestyle activities were associated with subsequent declines in measures of verbal sped, episodic memory, and semantic memory. Second, poorer cognitive functioning was related to subsequent decrements in lifestyle engagemnt, especially in social activities. Conclusions. the results support the dual contention that (a) lifestyle engagement may buffer some of the cognitive changues observed in late life, and 8b) persons who are exhibiting poorer cognitive performace may also relinquinsh some lifestyle activities.
