Handgrip Strength and Cognitive Decline in Older Mexican Americans

Abstract

Older Mexican Americans with reduced handgrip strength at baseline demonstrated a statistically significant decline in cognitive function over a 7-year period. By contrast, participants in the highest handgrip strength quartile maintained a higher level of cognitive function.

A New Approach to Improve Cognition, Muscle Strength, and Postural Balance in Community-Dwelling Elderly with a 3-D Virtual Reality Kayak Program

“…Alfaro-Acha et al (2006) investigated the relationship between grip strength and cognitive functions (Alfaro-Acha et al 2006). They reported that as grip strength weakened, Mini Mental State Examination scores and cognitive ability decreased (Sugiura et al 2013).…”

Sex Differences in Health and Survival

“…Moreover, handgrip strength has been found to be associated with disability at older ages (Giampaoli et al 1999;Rantanen et al 1999;Taekema et al 2010), cognitive decline (Alfaro-Acha et al 2006), and hospitalization (Cawthon et al 2009). While there is compelling evidence that men outperform women on handgrip tests at all ages and across all continents (Bohannon et al 2006;Dodds et al 2014;Leong et al 2015), the magnitude of the male advantage appears to vary across national populations, ethnicities, and age groups.…”

Força de preensão palmar em idosos com demência: estudo da confiabilidade

“…Despite the importance of guaranteeing the reliability of a device thereby ensuring a low margin of measurement error, there is a frequent use of the hand grip dynamometer in elderly subjects with dementia, both in the clinical environment and in research [10][11][12]26 , without any prior assessment as to the reliability of its use in elderly subjects with different degrees of dementia. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the reliability of this measurement in this population.…”

“…One measurement that has been widely used in research and clinical practice, both in the elderly with and without dementia, is strength assessed by means of the dynamometer hand grip 4,[10][11][12] . The hand grip strength (HGS) test is a relatively inexpensive measurement that provides an approximation of overall muscle strength and which is strongly associated with functionality 4,13,14 .…”

“…However, the reliability of this device is not known when used in elderly patients with cognitive impairment, nor is it known at which degree of dementia its use would become unviable. Some studies found a reduction in HGS as the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score decreased, but the authors did not assess the reliability of the measurements [10][11][12] .…”