Association of cognitive impairment, depressive symptoms and sarcopenia among healthy older men in the veterans retirement community in southern Taiwan: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Aim:To evaluate the association of cognitive impairment, depressive mood and sarcopenia among older men living in the veterans retirement community in southern Taiwan Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 353 men aged 65 years and older. In addition to demographic characteristics, all participants were measured for gait speed, handgrip strength and muscle mass by using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). The diagnosis of sarcopenia was made according to the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People criteria. Slow walking speed was defined as ≤0.8 meter/second. Low muscle strength was defined as the handgrip strength less than 22.5 kg which was adjusted according to Taiwanese norms. A heightadjusted muscle mass of 8.87 kg/m2 from a previous Taiwanese study was defined as low muscle mass. Cognitive function was evaluated by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15) was used for screening of depressive symptoms.Results: Among the 353 participants (mean age 82.7 ± 5.3 years), 30.9% (109/353) were classified as sarcopenic. Multivariate logistic regression showed that sarcopenia was independently associated with cognitive impairment (adjusted OR 3.03, 95% CI 1.63-5.65, P < 0.001) and depressive symptoms (adjusted OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.03-4.89, P = 0.04). Conclusions:Sarcopenia was significantly associated with cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms among otherwise healthy older men living in the veterans retirement community. Further outcome study is required to explore the interrelationship of cognition, depressive symptoms and sarcopenia in older adults. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2014; 14 (Suppl. 1): 102-108.

Sarcopenic obesity is associated with lower indicators of psychological health and quality of life in Koreans

“…However, most previous studies focused more on BMI as a measure of obesity. On the other hand, sarcopenia was also shown to have association with adverse psychological health; however, it was limited to depression [17][18][19]. We believe that our results on stronger association of SO with psychological health than that of BMI-based GO can provide evidence for synergistic effect of obesity and sarcopenia in psychological disorder.…”

“…However, our understanding of the relationship between SO and psychological disorders is quite limited. Some studies have reported that sarcopenia has effect on depression in elderly populations [17][18][19]; but, to our knowledge, no studies have investigated a broad range of psychological disorders in relation with SO in the general population. Moreover, recent studies reported that the etiology and pathology of sarcopenia and obesity could differ among age groups [20].…”

Association of Dynapenia, Sarcopenia, and Cognitive Impairment Among Community-Dwelling Older Taiwanese

“…Low educational level of older people living in the agricultural communities is common in Taiwan. Our previous work has shown that sarcopenia was significantly associated with lower MMSE among men aged 80 years and older (31). However, results of the EPIDOS study did not support the association between sarcopenia and cognitive impairment (32).…”

Depression and Handgrip Strength Among U.S. Adults Aged 60 Years and Older from NHANES 2011–2014

“…Despite the preliminary work on a hypothetical sarcopenia-depression link, there have been few studies using handgrip strength or other objective physical performance measures to explore strength loss alone as an indicator of aging-related functional impairment among older adults with depression and other common mental health conditions (25–29). Undertreated and potentially debilitating physical symptoms of depression can exacerbate arthritis and other aging-associated conditions (30, 31) escalate health care costs (32), and increase the risk for mortality among older adults (33).…”