Study on the association between social isolation and cognitive function among elderly in Daqing city, Heilongjiang province

Abstract

Objective: To examine the association between social isolation and cognitive function among the elderly living in the communities of Daqing city. Methods: A total of 981 community residents aged 60 years or over, were surveyed with a questionnaire. Both Lubben Social Network Scale-6 (LSNS-6) and Montreal Congnitive Assessment (MoCA) Changsha Versions were used to respectively screen the status of social isolation and cognitive function, on these elderly. Results: The average age was 71 years old for the 981 study participants. 10.60% (104/981) of the participants were assessed as having the status of social isolation, 9.48% (93/981) as having marginal family ties and 13.97% (137/981) as having marginal friendship ties. Results from the multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that participants with higher scores of LSNS-6 presenting better cognitive function score, with a partial regression coefficient as 0.10 (P<0.01). The MoCA scores in participants with social isolation (20.38±5.54) were significantly lower than the ones without social isolation (22.10±5.01) and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01). Social isolation was significantly related to the domain scores on visuo-spatial constructional executive functions (P=0.02), naming (P=0.03), language (P=0.01) and delayed memory functions (P<0.01), but not with other domains as concentration (P=0.33), orientation (P=0.27) or abstraction (P=0.49). Conclusion: The findings suggested that social isolation was mainly caused by the lack of friendship ties and associated with cognitive function and among the elderly in Daqing city, Heilongjiang province.