Cognition and the perception of physical symptoms in the community-dwelling elderly

Elderly people frequently complain of somatic (physical) symptoms that prom pt them to seek medical intervention. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cognitive impairment on somatic symptom complaints by the el derly. Symptoms (spontaneously, reported and reported after explicit inquir y) pertaining to 15 organ systems were assessed in a random sample of 462 c ommunity-dwelling individuals over the age of 75 years. The symptoms increa sed with decreasing cognitive performance with no, very mild, and mild cogn itive impairments as indicated on the Mini-Mental State Examination. The tr end of increasing reports of symptom with decreasing cognitive performance was significant (p = .0001); the association remained significant after con trolling for potential confounders in multivariate analysis (p < .05). The authors, who found that mild cognitive impairment was associated with perce ption of poorer body functioning, suggest that the clinical interpretation of somatic symptoms in the elderly should take cognitive impairment into ac count.