Abstract
There is ample evidence that physical and cognitive performance are related, but the results of studies investigating this relationship show great variability. Both physical performance and cognitive performance are constructs consisting of several subdomains, but it is presently unknown if the relationship between physical and cognitive performance depends on subdomain of either construct and whether gender and age moderate this relationship. The aim of this study is to identify the strongest physical predictors of cognitive performance, to determine the specificity of these predictors for various cognitive subdomains, and to examine gender and age as potential moderators of the relationship between physical and cognitive performance in a sample of community-dwelling older adults. In total, 98 men and 122 women (average age 74.0±5.6 years) were subjected to a series of performance-based physical fitness and neuropsychological tests. Muscle strength, balance, functional reach, and walking ability (combined score of walking speed and endurance) were considered to predict cognitive performance across several domains (i.e. memory, verbal attention, visual attention, set-shifting, visuo-motor attention, inhibition and intelligence). Results showed that muscle strength was a significant predictor of cognitive performance for men and women. Walking ability and balance were significant predictors of cognitive performance for men, whereas only walking ability was significant for women. We did not find a moderating effect of age, nor did we find support for a differential effect of the physical predictors across different cognitive subdomains. In summary, our results showed a significant relationship between cognitive and physical performance, with a moderating effect of gender.
Highlights
Demographic data suggest that the number of older adults will increase at an accelerating rate in the coming decades [1]
Most prominent is the divergent selection of physical performance domains and cognitive performance domains across studies to represent physical and cognitive performance [7,8,9,10]
We addressed the following questions in this study: (1) Which physical performance measures are the strongest predictors of cognitive performance? (2) Do different physical performance tests predict different aspects of cognitive performance? (3) Do gender and age moderate the association between physical and cognitive performance?
Summary
Demographic data suggest that the number of older adults will increase at an accelerating rate in the coming decades [1]. We address three issues that might affect the physical performance-cognition association in older adults: (1) the selection of cognitive domains, (2) gender, and (3) age. As for test and domain selection, prior studies used a wide variety of methods and tests to quantify the association between physical and cognitive performance. While the use of many tests and domains is a logical consequence of the desire to assess multiple facets of physical and cognitive performance, this approach increases the heterogeneity in predicting cognition from motor performance across studies. In addition to the issue of test and domain selection, there are differences between studies in ethnicity, age, and the number of comorbidities. The association between physical and cognitive performance varies widely between studies [10]
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