Hospitalizations and cognitive decline in older adults
"We found that those who have non-elective (emergency or urgent) hospitalizations and who have not previously been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's disease had a rapid decline in cognitive function (i.e., thinking abilities) compared to the prehospital rates," said Bryan James, PhD, an epidemiologist and in the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center and an assistant professor in the Rush Department of Internal Medicine. "By comparison, people who were never hospitalized and those who had elective hospitalizations did not experience the drastic decline in cognitive function." James and colleagues presented the research data at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London on July 17. Study compares hospitalization data and cognitive assessments for 930 older adults The data emerged from a study of 930 older adults (75 percent female, an average age of 81 years old) enrolled in the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP) in Chicago. The...