Abstract
Studies have found a benefit to living a cognitively active life in older age. Our goal was to quantify participation in cognitively stimulating activities in adults with and without age-related eye disease. We conducted a cross-sectional hospital-based study in Montreal, Canada of older adults (n = 303) having either age-related macular degeneration (AMD) (n = 96), glaucoma (n = 93), or normal vision (n = 114). To be eligible, the AMD group had to have bilateral late stage AMD with a better eye visual acuity of 20/30 or worse. The glaucoma group had to have a diagnosis of bilateral primary open-angle glaucoma with visual field mean deviation < = −4 dB in their better eye. Further inclusion criteria included age ≥ 65 and a Mini-Mental State Exam Blind score ≥ 10. Cognitive activities were measured using the Victoria Longitudinal Study Activity Questionnaire. Linear regression was used. Patients with AMD (β = −4.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) −6.0, −2.4) and glaucoma (β = −1.8, 95% CI −3.3, −0.3) participated in fewer cognitive activities per month compared to those with normal vision after adjusting for age, sex, education, diabetes, number of comorbidities, cognition, and cataract. People with AMD and glaucoma participated in fewer cognitive activities, which could put them at risk for future cognitive impairment.
Highlights
Many observational studies have suggested the cognitive benefits of living an active, cognitively stimulating life[1,2,3]
Our study is the first to quantify the number of activities done by people with eye disease compared to people without eye disease
Most affected for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients were physical activities, hobbies and home maintenance activities, and novel information processing activities, which includes activities like reading books, doing crossword puzzles, attending films or concerts, and doing volunteer work. This fit with our hypothesis that AMD patients would be affected across a variety of activities but that activities requiring novel information processing would be most affected
Summary
Many observational studies have suggested the cognitive benefits of living an active, cognitively stimulating life[1,2,3]. Research by Carlson et al found that each additional activity per month was associated with an 11% lower risk of incident cognitive impairment as measured using the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE)[3]. It may be difficult for people with age-related eye disease to participate in a wide variety of cognitive activities. Our primary objective was to determine whether people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or glaucoma, two of the most common causes of visual impairment in older adults, participate in fewer cognitive activities compared to older adults with normal vision. We hypothesized that glaucoma patients would generally be less affected than AMD patients except for physical activities due to difficulty with balance[10,11]
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