COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE AND 3-YEAR MORTALITY IN THE PAQUID ELDERLY STUDY

The aim of this study was to investigate the issue of whether low cogn itive performance is an independent predictor of mortality in non deme nted elderly individuals. From an initial population sample of 2792 in dividuals aged 65 years and over living in Gironde (PAQUID cohort), we selected a sub-sample of 2149 individuals who had no major physical o r cognitive disabilities at entry in the study. Among these 2149 indiv iduals, 179 (8.3 %) died during the three first years of follow-up. Mo rtality rates increased strongly with age and were significantly relat ed with educational level, gender, smoking and presence of chronic dis eases or regular use of more than 4 medications at baseline examinatio n. Cognitive functions at entry in the study had been assessed by a ba ttery of 6 psychometric tests. The 6 test results were analysed indepe ndently and also combined in an overall measure of cognitive functioni ng. Computation of mortality rates in each quartile of the 6 test scor es showed a clear overall pattern of increased mortality with decrease d scores. Multivariate logistic regression confirmed that subjects sco ring in the lowest quartiles had the highest mortality rates, after ad justment on age, gender, educational level and other possible confound ers. Odds-ratio was equal to 3.5 (95 % CI : 1.5 - 7.9) in subjects wit h the lowest overall cognitive performance compared to the highest per formers.