In Portugal, the number of elderlies living alone and being institutionalized are rising. Institutionalized elderlies are susceptible to loneliness. Loneliness is associated with depression, anxiety, poor sleep quality, and cognitive decline. Determining which variables predict loneliness in institutionalized elderlies may allow appropriate targeting interventions in loneliness to potentially preserve mental and cognitive health.We want to explore the prevalence of loneliness in a sample of institutionalized elderly, and determining which variables predict loneliness.Loneliness was measured using UCLA loneliness scale. We also included a measure of socio-demographic aspects and health-related variables, the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Geriatric Depression Scale, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Sleep Subjective Index for Elderly.Our sample included 539 elderly (60-100 years, mean age = 80.03 ± 7.38), mostly women (75.8%), widowed (60.3%), with primary basic education (39.5%), frequenting day care center (61.0%) or living in retirement home (39.0%).The prevalence of loneliness feelings was 68.2%. Loneliness was significantly related with more anxiety and depressive symptoms, poor sleep quality, and poor life satisfaction. Women and elderlies without partner had also more loneliness feelings. Loneliness was not associated with age, education, living alone/accompanied, number of social contacts, nor with cognitive performance or sensorial problems (low vision and poor hearing). After the multiple logistic regression of the significant variables, only satisfaction with live predicted loneliness (OR = 1.07, p = 0.05).In conclusion, satisfaction with live may affect feelings of loneliness. More studies with non-institutionalized are needed for appropriated targeting interventions.

Affectivity is related to cognitive impairment, but it is not known whether positive affect and negative affect increase/decrease the risk of cognitive impairment. In this study, we sought to examine the prevalence of cognitive impairment, and the potential role of positive and negative affectivity on cognitive functioning in institutionalized portuguese elderly, controlling the potential role of demographic and emotional factors.A cross sectional investigation has been conducted with a portuguese institutionalized sample at Coimbra’s Council. We inquired 412 healthy elderly with a mean age of 80.38 years (SD = 7.24) using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI). Demographic (76.9% women, 14.3% > 4 years of education, 99.1% manual occupation, 82.2% without partner) and other self-reported related factors were taken into consideration (GDS mean 14.30 ± 6.31; GAI mean = 12.49 ± 5.93).The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 66.6% (youngest-old: 1.4%; young-old: 24.7%, old-old: 36.5%, oldest-old: 3.9%). We found that only the positive affect was significantly related with the MMSE (r = 0.22). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that positive affect predicted impairment in cognitive performance (OR = 0.96, CI 95% = 0.93-0.98; p < 0.001). These relationships were significant even after controlling for depression and anxiety status, age, education, and occupation.These findings suggest that positive affect is a variable to attend to when evaluating cognitive functioning in institutionalized elderly.

Verbal fluency (VF) involves complex processes and has been a good marker of cognitive decline. However, the literature is inconsistent concerning to witch factors are associated with VF. Our aims are to analyze the relationship between both phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) and semantic verbal fluency (SVF) and sociodemographic and psychopathological variables, and explore which emerge as significant predictors. A subsample of 429 of healthy institutionalized elderly from the Aging Trajectories at Coimbra Council Project were surveyed (60 to 100 years; mean age = 80.38 ± 7.24), the majority was women (76.9%), without a partner (82.2%), without education or with less than four years of education (85.7%), manual occupation (90.1%), and attending day care centers. We evaluated VF phonetically (letters P, M, R) and semantically (animals and food), anxiety symptoms through the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), depressive symptoms through Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and feelings of loneliness through Loneliness Scale (UCLA). PVF was significantly related with education, occupation, GAI, and GDS. SVF was significantly associated with age, education, occupation, and GDS. Furthermore, SVF scores were worse in elderly men and in those living in night care center, and PVF scores were lower in those with high levels of anxiety symptomatology. In logistic regression analysis none of the variables accounted for the variance in PVF. The only predictor of SVF was sex. In conclusion, this study allowed us to elucidate the only key factor underlying verbal fluency. Being a man may affect SVF performance in institutionalized elderly.

Introduction: When cognitive decline (CD) is present, attention is one of the impaired mental functions. CD is also associated with anxious/depressive symptoms and with some demographic variables, particularly, age.

Objetivos. O défice mnésico é uma das alterações cognitivas que mais afeta as pessoas idosas. A idade é considerada um dos fatores de relevo nas alterações de memória, inclusivamente pelas próprias pessoas idosas. A investigação tem mostrado que existem outros fatores além da idade que afetam a memória das pessoas idosas. Contudo, fica por esclarecer qual o real papel da idade sobre a memória quando é controlada a influência de outras variáveis. Assim, o presente estudo pretende analisar o impacto da idade no funcionamento mnésico de pessoas idosas e verificar se, ao controlar o papel de outras variáveis (sexo, escolaridade, profissão, situação civil, situação residencial e situação clínica), esse potencial impacto se mantém.Métodos. A amostra global foi constituída por 1126 participantes (283 homens e 843 mulheres; 226 residentes na comunidade e 900 em resposta social dirigida à população idosa) com idades compreendidas entre os 60 e os 100 anos. A avaliação foi realizada com recurso aos itens do Mini-Mental State Examination (memória de trabalho), o fator do Montreal Cognitive Assessment (memória declarativa verbal) e Figura Complexa de Rey-Osterrieth (memória visuoespacial).Resultados. Globalmente, a idade, escolaridade, profissão, situação civil, residencial e clínica influenciaram a memória de forma diferenciada consoante o tipo de memória. As análises de regressão hierárquica mostraram que a idade é um fator preditivo em todos os tipos de memória. Emergiram ainda outros fatores preditivos com coeficientes de regressão superiores à idade conforme o tipo de memória (exceto na memória de trabalho).Conclusões. A idade, a escolaridade e a profissão influenciam a memória, assim como os fatores que potencialmente estimulam cognitiva e socialmente (como ter um companheiro e residir na comunidade). Os resultados apontam para a importância de intervir em pessoas em respostas sociais, mais idosas, sem companheiro, com baixa escolaridade e profissão manual.