Midlife aspiration and optimism to improve status at work is associated with lower risk for late life dementia

Abstract

Background:Vascular risk is consistently associated to the onset of dementia. Schooling and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors might have an impact on the rate of progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).Methods: Forty-seven patients with probable AD were recruited and classified in two groups according to their score on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE): patients scoring 20 within 3 years after disease onset. Additionally, twenty-six patients who had already scored 15 were classified in two groups: patients scoring 15 within 4 years after disease onset. Also, forty patients with a score > 1.0 on the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) were allocated into one of two groups: patients reaching a score > 1.0 within 1⁄44 years after disease onset. Patients were assessed for gender, schooling ( 4 years), age of estimated disease onset ( 1⁄470 years), number of CV risk factors (>1⁄43, or 1⁄470kgf, or 1⁄430kg/m, or ) and waist circumference (> 1⁄4102cm, orChi-squarewas used for statistics, with the threshold of significance at ? 1.0, there were no significant results for gender (?1⁄40.702), schooling (?1⁄40.507), age at disease onset (?1⁄40.666), BMI (?1⁄40.926), weight (?1⁄40.169) or waist circumference (?1⁄40.787). Cumulative CV risk was non-significant for reaching CDR> 1.0 (?1⁄40.641), MMSE1⁄420 (?1⁄4 0.861) or MMSE1⁄415 (?1⁄40.716).Conclusions:Weight and lower schooling had marginally significant effects for a faster rate of progression of AD, assessed by way of MMSE scores.