Elsevier

Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics

Volume 98, January–February 2022, 104532
Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics

Trajectory classes of social activity and their effects on longitudinal changes in cognitive function among older adults

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2021.104532Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We identified four social activity trajectory classes among older adults.

  • The classes were high-stable, moderate-stable, high-decreasing, and low-decreasing.

  • Age, education level, IADL, and depressive symptom were associated with the classes.

  • The high-stable and moderate-stable groups showed a slower rate of cognitive decline.

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to identify the social activity trajectory by class and the effects on the cognitive function trajectory among older adults. Methods: Data from six waves of the 2006–2016 Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging were analyzed. This study included 3,002 participants aged ≥65 years. Latent class growth modeling was used to classify the respondents based on their engagement in social activity over 10 years. Latent growth modeling was used to examine the effect of their social activity trajectory by class to predict participants’ cognitive function trajectory. Results: We identified four social activity trajectory classes: high-stable (7.8%), moderate-stable (50.3%), high-decreasing (2.9%), and low-decreasing (39.0%). Older adults with an age of 75 years or older, a low education level, instrumental activities of daily living limitations, and depressive symptoms were more likely to be in the low-decreasing social activity trajectory class. The respondents in the high-stable (B = 0.680, p < 0.001) and moderate-stable (B = 0.362, p < 0.001) classes showed a slower rate of cognitive decline compared with those in the low-decreasing class. Discussion: Community-based strategies need to be developed to encourage older adults to maintain their social activity engagement and ultimately prevent cognitive decline.

Section snippets

1. Introduction

According to activity theory, continuous engagement in social activities in later life is a major contributory factor to improving and maintaining health (Longino Jr & Kart, 1982). Several studies have reported that the positive influence of social activity on health status is greater in old age than in other age groups (Lee et al., 2008). Social activities include getting together with friends, attending social events or functions, volunteering, and participating in occupational or social

2.1 Study design and participants

This study is a secondary data analysis using longitudinal data from six time periods (i.e., waves) derived from a national panel survey, the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA). The KLoSA participants include Koreans who are ≥45 years old and live in South Korea, except for Jeju Island. KLoSA data have been collected every two years beginning in 2006 using computer-assisted personal interviewing. The KLoSA is conducted by the Korea Employment Information, and data can be obtained from //survey.keis.or.kr

3.1 General characteristics

Approximately 70.1% of the respondents were 65–74 years old (Table 1). In addition, 58.5% were female, 65.8% were married and 72.2% had only an elementary education or less. Approximately 65.0% of the respondents had at least one chronic disease, 19.3% had IADL limitations, and 28.9% reported having depressive symptoms. The mean numbers of social activities in the first to sixth waves were 0.85, 0.85, 0.77, 0.76, 0.74, and 0.70, respectively. Moreover, the mean score of cognitive function in

4. Discussion

In this study, four heterogeneous social activity trajectory groups (i.e., high-stable, moderate-stable, high-decreasing, and low-decreasing) were identified using LCGM. The latent model indicated that approximately 39.0% of the respondents showed a low level of social activity engagement in the first wave (baseline) and a decrease in the level of engagement over 10 years. Only 7.8% of the respondents showed a high level of social activity engagement in the first wave and maintained their level

5. Conclusions

In a population-based sample, we examined the influence of social activity engagement on the change in cognitive function among older, community-dwelling older adults. Using 10-year longitudinal panel data, this study identified four classes of older adults’ social activity engagement trajectory: high-stable, moderate-stable, high-decreasing, and low-decreasing. Older adults with older age (≥75 years old), a low education level, IADL limitations, and depressive symptoms at baseline (first wave)

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019S1A5B5A07106779).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Da Eun Kim: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Ju Young Yoon: Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing Interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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