Key result
Spousal dementia or cognitive impairment shows no association with incident dementia risk.
Why the study?
The study investigated the relationship between the cognitive status of participants' spouses and participants' own cognitive outcomes, controlling for mid-life factors.
Does having a spouse with MCI or dementia elevate the risk of incident dementia or cognitive decline in older adults?
Cohort (n=1,845)
Yes
Does having a spouse with MCI or dementia elevate the risk of incident dementia or cognitive decline in older adults?
Hazard Ratio: 0.97 (95% CI 0.69–1.38)
Concordance in cognitive decline between spouses is largely explained by shared mid-life behavioral and cardiometabolic risk factors rather than the stress of caregiving.
Spousal MCI/dementia does not raise incident dementia risk after adjustment; supports shared mid-life factors explaining concordance over caregiving stress.
Objectives: We investigated the relationship between the cognitive status of participants’ spouses and participants’ own cognitive outcomes, controlling for mid-life factors. Methods: Participants ( n = 1845; baseline age 66–90 years) from the prospective Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study were followed from 2011 to 2019. We used linear regression and Cox proportional hazard models to estimate whether spouses of people with MCI/dementia had lower cognitive functioning and elevated risk of incident dementia. Results: Having a spouse with MCI/dementia was associated with a deficit in cognitive function (b = −0.09 standard deviations; 95% CI = −0.18, 0.00). Adjustment for mid-life risk factors attenuated this association (b = −0.02 standard deviations; 95% CI = −0.10, 0.06). We observed no significant relationship between spousal MCI/dementia status and incident dementia (hazard ratio = 0.97; 95% CI = 0.69, 1.38). Discussion: Spousal cognitive status is not associated with poor cognitive outcomes independent of mid-life factors.
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Lee et al. (2023) conducted a cohort in Cognitively normal at baseline (n=1,845). Having a spouse with MCI or dementia vs. Having a spouse with normal cognition was evaluated on Incident dementia (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.69-1.38). Having a spouse with MCI or dementia was not associated with an elevated risk of incident dementia (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.69-1.38) independent of shared mid-life risk factors.
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