Poor decision making is a consequence of cognitive decline among older persons without Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment

Decision making is an important determinant of health and well-being across the lifespan but is critical in aging, when many influential decisions are made just as cognitive function declines. Increasing evidence suggests that older adults, even those without dementia, often make poor decisions and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-08, Vol.7 (8), p.e43647-e43647
Main Authors: Boyle, Patricia A, Yu, Lei, Wilson, Robert S, Gamble, Keith, Buchman, Aron S, Bennett, David A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Aging - physiology
Alzheimer Disease - physiopathology
Alzheimer's disease
Analysis
Biology
Blood & organ donations
Clinical decision making
Cognition
Cognition Disorders - physiopathology
Cognition Disorders - psychology
Cognitive ability
Cognitive Dysfunction - physiopathology
Decision analysis
Decision making
Decision Making - physiology
Decisions
Dementia
Dementia - physiopathology
Dementia disorders
Early intervention
Family medical history
Female
Fraud
Gerontology
Health care
Humans
Hypotheses
Impairment
Life span
Male
Medical diagnosis
Medicare
Medicine
Memory
Metropolitan areas
Middle Aged
Neurology
Older people
Participation
Predictive control
Regression analysis
Risk factors
Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Summary:Decision making is an important determinant of health and well-being across the lifespan but is critical in aging, when many influential decisions are made just as cognitive function declines. Increasing evidence suggests that older adults, even those without dementia, often make poor decisions and are selectively vulnerable to scams. To date, however, the factors associated with poor decision making in old age are unknown. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that poor decision making is a consequence of cognitive decline among older persons without Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. Participants were 420 non-demented persons from the Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal, clinical-pathologic cohort study of aging in the Chicago metropolitan area. All underwent repeated cognitive evaluations and subsequently completed assessments of decision making and susceptibility to scams. Decision making was measured using 12 items from a previously established performance-based measure and a self-report measure of susceptibility to scams. Cognitive function data were collected over an average of 5.5 years prior to the decision making assessment. Regression analyses were used to examine whether the prior rate of cognitive decline predicted the level of decision making and susceptibility to scams; analyses controlled for age, sex, education, and starting level of cognition. Among 420 persons without dementia, more rapid cognitive decline predicted poorer decision making and increased susceptibility to scams (p's
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0043647