Longitudinal Associations Between Contact Frequency with Friends and with Family, Activity Engagement, and Cognitive Functioning

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Abstract

Objectives:

Social engagement may be an important protective resource for cognitive aging. Some evidence suggests that time spent with friends may be more beneficial for cognition than time spent with family. Because maintaining friendships has been demonstrated to require more active maintenance and engagement in shared activities, activity engagement may be one underlying pathway that explains the distinct associations between contact frequency with friends versus family and cognition.

Methods:

Using two waves of data from the national survey of Midlife in the United States ( n = 3707, M _age = 55.80, 51% female at baseline), we examined longitudinal associations between contact frequency with friends and family, activity engagement (cognitive and physical activities), and cognition (episodic memory and executive functioning) to determine whether activity engagement mediates the relationship between contact frequency and cognition.

Results:

The longitudinal mediation model revealed that more frequent contact with friends, but not family, was associated with greater concurrent engagement in physical and cognitive activities, which were both associated with better episodic memory and executive functioning.

Conclusion:

These findings suggest that time spent with friends may promote both cognitively and physically stimulating activities that could help to preserve not only these social relationships but also cognitive functioning.

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Most cited references 29

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Can training in a real-time strategy video game attenuate cognitive decline in older adults?

Chandramallika Basak, Walter Boot, Michelle W. Voss … (2008)

Declines in various cognitive abilities, particularly executive control functions, are observed in older adults. An important goal of cognitive training is to slow or reverse these age-related declines. However, opinion is divided in the literature regarding whether cognitive training can engender transfer to a variety of cognitive skills in older adults. In the current study, the authors trained older adults in a real-time strategy video game for 23.5 hr in an effort to improve their executive functions. A battery of cognitive tasks, including tasks of executive control and visuospatial skills, were assessed before, during, and after video-game training. The trainees improved significantly in the measures of game performance. They also improved significantly more than the control participants in executive control functions, such as task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and reasoning. Individual differences in changes in game performance were correlated with improvements in task switching. The study has implications for the enhancement of executive control processes of older adults. Copyright (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

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Influence of leisure activity on the incidence of Alzheimer's disease.

N Scarmeas, G. Levy, M-X Tang … (2001)

To determine whether leisure activities modify the risk for incident dementia. Although high educational and occupational attainments have been associated with reduced risk of incident dementia, the relation between leisure activities and dementia risk has not been adequately investigated. A total of 1,772 nondemented individuals aged 65 years or older, living in northern Manhattan, New York, were identified and followed longitudinally in a community-based cohort incidence study. Subjects' leisure activities at baseline were assessed, annual examinations with the same standardized neurologic and neuropsychological measures were performed for up to 7 years (mean 2.9 years), and incident dementia was assessed as the main outcome measure. Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for age, ethnic group, education, and occupation, were used to estimate the relative risk (RR) of incident dementia associated with high leisure activities. Of the 1,772 subjects, 207 became demented. The risk of dementia was decreased in subjects with high leisure activities (RR, 0.62; 95% CI 0.46 to 0.83). The association of high leisure with decreased RR of incident dementia was present even when baseline cognitive performance, health limitations interfering with desired leisure activities, cerebrovascular disease, and depression were considered. The data suggest that engagement in leisure activities may reduce the risk of incident dementia, possibly by providing a reserve that delays the onset of clinical manifestations of the disease.

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A longitudinal study of cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function in healthy older adults.

Patrick D. Barnes, Kristine Yaffe, William Satariano … (2003)

To determine whether cardiorespiratory fitness at baseline is associated with maintenance of cognitive function over 6 years or with level of cognitive function on tests performed 6 years later in a longitudinal study of healthy older people. Prospective cohort. Community-based study of noninstitutionalized adults aged 55 and older living in Sonoma, California. Three hundred forty-nine cohort members without evidence of cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disability, or cognitive impairment at baseline. Cardiorespiratory fitness measures were based on a standard treadmill exercise test protocol and included peak oxygen consumption (peak VO2), treadmill exercise duration, and oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES). Cognitive function was evaluated at baseline with a modified Mini-Mental State Examination (mMMSE) and after 6 years of follow-up with a detailed cognitive test battery that included the full MMSE, three tests of attention/executive function, two measures of verbal memory, and two tests of verbal fluency. Participants with worse cardiorespiratory fitness at baseline experienced greater decline on the mMMSE over 6 years (mean mMMSE decline (95% confidence interval) by baseline peak VO2 tertile: lowest = -0.5 (-0.8 to -0.3), middle = -0.2 (-0.5-0.0), highest = 0.0 (-0.3-0.2), P =.002 for trend over tertiles). Participants with worse baseline cardiorespiratory fitness also performed worse on all cognitive tests conducted 6 years later. Results were similar for analyses based on peak VO2, treadmill exercise duration, and OUES. After adjustment for demographic and health-related covariates, measures of cardiorespiratory fitness were associated most strongly with measures of global cognitive function and attention/executive function. Baseline measures of cardiorespiratory fitness are positively associated with preservation of cognitive function over a 6-year period and with levels of performance on cognitive tests conducted 6 years later in healthy older adults. High cardiorespiratory fitness may protect against cognitive dysfunction in older people.