Leisure Activities and Change in Cognitive Stability: A Multivariate Approach.

Nathalie Mella,Paolo Ghisletta,Anik De Ribaupierre,Salomé Döll,Emmanuelle Grob

doi:10.3390/brainsci7030027

Nathalie Mella, Paolo Ghisletta + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci7030027

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Abstract

Aging is traditionally associated with cognitive decline, attested by slower reaction times and poorer performance in various cognitive tasks, but also by an increase in intraindividual variability (IIV) in cognitive performance. Results concerning how lifestyle activities protect from cognitive decline are mixed in the literature and all focused on how it affects mean performance. However, IIV has been proven to be an index more sensitive to age differences, and very little is known about the relationships between lifestyle activities and change in IIV in aging. This longitudinal study explores the association between frequency of physical, social, intellectual, artistic, or cultural activities and age-related change in various cognitive abilities, considering both mean performance and IIV. Ninety-six participants, aged 64–93 years, underwent a battery of cognitive tasks at four measurements over a seven-year period, and filled out a lifestyle activity questionnaire. Linear multilevel models were used to analyze the associations between change in cognitive performance and five types of activities. Results showed that the practice of leisure activities was more strongly associated with IIV than with mean performance, both when considering overall level and change in performance. Relationships with IIV were dependent of the cognitive tasks considered and overall results showed protective effects of cultural, physical and intellectual activities on IIV. These results underline the need for considering IIV in the study of age-related cognitive change.

Highlights

Normal aging is traditionally associated with the deterioration of a number of cognitive abilities, such as working memory, episodic memory, processing speed, or inhibition [1]
A significant fixed effect of time for reading span (RSpan) indicated that participants became better in this task
In line with previous studies investigating the role of art activities, including expressive writing, music, theatre or visual art, in cognition, our findings suggest that weekly art practice is related to enhanced cognitive functioning

Summary

Introduction

Normal aging is traditionally associated with the deterioration of a number of cognitive abilities, such as working memory, episodic memory, processing speed, or inhibition [1]. The level of IIV has been associated with subsequent cognitive decline [12,13], working memory capacities [14], later MCI [15] and even with proximity to death [16]. All these findings converge to suggest that IIV is a meaningful indicator of processing efficiency in aging, and may provide, as suggested by some

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