The association between cognitive function trajectories and all-cause mortality in middle-aged and older Chinese adults with cardiovascular disease: A longitudinal study from CHARLS

Fig. 1. Flow chart of the study. CHARLS, the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.

Fig. 2. Mean cognitive trajectories identified by K-means clustering among middle-aged and older Chinese adults with cardiovascular disease in CHARLS (2011–2015). The plot illustrates four distinct cognitive trajectory groups derived from K-means clustering of total cognition scores across three waves. Each line represents the mean total cognition score for a specific trajectory group, with the shaded areas indicating the 95 % confidence intervals.

Fig. 3. Kaplan-Meier survival curves for all-cause mortality stratified by cognitive trajectory among middle-aged and older Chinese adults with cardiovascular disease in CHARLS (2011–2020). A log-rank test indicated significant differences in survival probabilities among the groups, p < 0.001.