Global perceived stress predicts cognitive change among older adults.

Abstract

Research on stress and cognitive aging has primarily focused on examining the effects of biological and psychosocial indicators of stress with little attention provided to examining the association between perceived stress and cognitive aging. We examined the longitudinal association between global perceived stress (GPS) and cognitive change among 116 older adults (Mage = 80, SD = 6.40, range: 67–96) in a repeated measurement burst design. Bursts of six daily cognitive assessments were repeated every six months over a two-year period with self-reported GPS assessed at the start of every burst. Using a double-exponential learning model, two parameters were estimated: 1) asymptotic level (peak performance), and 2) asymptotic change (the rate in which peak performance changed across bursts). We hypothesized that greater GPS would predict slowed performance in tasks of attention, working memory, and speed of processing and that increases in GPS across time would predict cognitive slowing. Results from latent growth curve analyses were consistent with our first hypothesis and indicated that level of GPS predicted cognitive slowing across time. Changes in GPS did not predict cognitive slowing. This study extends previous findings by demonstrating a prospective association between level of GPS and cognitive slowing across a two-year period highlighting the role of psychological stress as a risk factor for poor cognitive function.

Change in perceived stress and 2‐year change in cognitive function among older adults: The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing

“…Overall, our results support the interpretation that increased stress is associated with decreased immediate recall performance. Our results extend those of Munoz et al () by examining other domains of cognition and investigating change in performance accuracy rather than reaction time, in a large sample with a wide age range.…”

“…Aggarwal and colleagues were able to adjust for multiple covariates measured at a single time point; however, it is unclear whether changes in these covariates could explain the association between baseline perceived stress and subsequent decline. A recent study examined perceived stress and cognition, both assessed at multiple time points over 2 years (Munoz, Sliwinski, Scott, & Hofer, ). They found an association between the level of stress over time and cognitive slowing but no association between the change in stress over time and cognition.…”

Association Between Persistent Pain and Memory Decline and Dementia in a Longitudinal Cohort of Elders

“…Attentional impairment correlates with degree of memory impairment, suggesting that as attention is diverted elsewhere, memory encoding may be incomplete. 8,31 Furthermore, the affective stress of chronic pain may be, as other stressful exposures are, 33,34 implicated in faster cognitive decline via putative cortisol-based pathways. 35,36 If these mechanisms fully explain the accelerated cognitive decline we demonstrate here, resolution of pain would mitigate the detrimental cognitive effects.…”

Mental retirement and health selection: Analyses from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study

“…Yet, other factors may be ongoing. For example, everyday stress, a known predictor of cognitive aging (Munoz, Sliwinski, Scott, & Hofer, 2015), may decrease substantially when workers make the mental transition towards retirement thereby resulting in a cognitive return to retirement .…”