Impact of age and metabolic dysfunction on memory and executive functions among older persons with Type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Item
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Title
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Impact of age and metabolic dysfunction on memory and executive functions among older persons with Type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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Identifier
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AAI3310656
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identifier
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3310656
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Creator
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Nicholls, Toni.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joan C. Borod
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Cognitive | Gerontology
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Abstract
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The overall goal of the current study was to elucidate the impact of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) on cognition among older persons (age 65 and over). Attention was paid to controlling for medical illnesses that are comorbid with DM and that have been shown to impair cognition in their own right (i.e., hypertension [HTN] and heart disease [HD]). We also sought to examine the extent to which increasing age impairs cognition among older persons with DM.;We investigated whether or not individuals with DM perform worse than individuals with HTN, HTN and HD, and healthy controls (HCs) on the free recall portion of the Free and Cued Selective Reminding test (FCSRT); subtests from the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD): immediate and delayed recall word list (WL) and the Figure recall test; Verbal Fluency: category; and Clock Drawing tasks.;The results revealed that on the FCSRT and CERAD Figure recall, both the DM and HTN+HD groups recalled fewer items relative to the HC group, whereas the HTN group was comparable to the HC group. There were no differences among the groups on the CERAD-WL tests. There were no group differences on the verbal fluency or the clock drawing tasks.;A significant effect of Age was found on the FCSR, CERAD-WL tests, verbal fluency, and clock drawing, such that the oldest-old (80 + years) performed significantly worse than the young-old (65 -- 79 years).;We also examined whether or not an inverse relationship existed between blood glucose (HbA1c) and cognition among those with DM. A potential interaction between Age and HbA1c was also evaluated. Results revealed an inverse relationship between HbA1c and recall on the CERAD-WL tests. An interaction between Age and HbA1c occurred for both CERAD-WL tests and Verbal Fluency. For participants with low HbA1c, performance decreased with increasing age; however, among participants with high HbA1c, performance improved with increasing age.;The finding that both the DM and HTN+HD groups were impaired on the FCSR and CERAD Figure recall test suggests that HD might be implicated in cognitive impairment associated with DM. The results also suggest that elevated HbA1c has a negative impact on cognition.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
