The level of cognitive function and recognition of emotions in older adults

Abstract

BackgroundThe association between cognitive decline and the ability to recognise emotions in interpersonal communication is not well understood. We aimed to investigate the association between cognitive function and the ability to recognise emotions in other people’s facial expressions across the full continuum of cognitive capacity.MethodsCross-sectional analysis of 4039 participants (3016 men, 1023 women aged 59 to 82 years) in the Whitehall II study. Cognitive function was assessed using a 30-item Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), further classified into 8 groups: 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, and <24 (possible dementia) MMSE points. The Facial Expression Recognition Task (FERT) was used to examine recognition of anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and happiness.ResultsThe multivariable adjusted difference in the percentage of accurate recognition between the highest and lowest MMSE group was 14.9 (95%CI, 11.1–18.7) for anger, 15.5 (11.9–19.2) for fear, 18.5 (15.2–21.8) for disgust, 11.6 (7.3–16.0) for sadness, and 6.3 (3.1–9.4) for happiness. However, recognition of several emotions was reduced already after 1 to 2-point reduction in MMSE and with further points down in MMSE, the recognition worsened at an accelerated rate.ConclusionsThe ability to recognize emotion in facial expressions is affected at an early stage of cognitive impairment and might decline at an accelerated rate with the deterioration of cognitive function. Accurate recognition of happiness seems to be less affected by a severe decline in cognitive performance than recognition of negatively valued emotions.

Impaired Recognition of Facial Emotion in Patients With Parkinson Disease Under Dopamine Therapy

“…It is known that the emotional deficit is presented before the manifestations of motor symptoms 4 and it is linked to cognitive decline (the ability to recognize emotions declines with the deterioration of cognitive function). 52 Basal ganglia are involved in both disgust processing and neuropsychological processes. 53 Particularly, the ablation of striatum, which is involved in disgust recognition, is related to cognitive deficits, such as working memory, setshifting, and perception.…”

A Survey of Alzheimer’s Disease Early Diagnosis Methods for Cognitive Assessment

“…Associated symptoms include changes in behaviour or attitude, a decrease in empathy, or less ability to recognise facial expressions. Virtanen et al [ 52 ] studied the correlation between the emotion recognition ability deterioration and the cognitive impairment level of older adults. Their participants group, aged 35 to 55 years, have to go through the MMSE and the Facial Emotion Recognition Test (FERT).…”

“…The visual impairment related methods set thresholds in the number of fixations, their duration, time to identify stimulus, or number of errors/successful answers [ 32 , 49 , 50 , 51 ]. Approaches that analyse social cognition impairments (the capability of the patients to recognise emotions) count the number of correctly classified emotions and the time to detect an emotion [ 52 , 53 ]. Sensor/behaviour approaches use marks that are related to the number of actions forgotten, while the participants are doing daily activities.…”

Cognitive Decline Influences Emotional Creativity in the Elderly

“…There are studies supporting the improved cognitive control of emotions in older adults (e.g., Blanchard-Fields, Mienaltowski, & Seay, 2007;Hay & Diehl, 2011); however, some problems in emotional processing arise with cognitive decline in the elderly (Virtanen et al, 2017). The dynamic integration theory (Labouvie-Vief, 2003) suggests that when cognitive decline becomes considerable, the ability of older adults to process and regulate emotions may be worsened.…”