Influence of depression, anxiety and stress on cognitive performance in community‐dwelling older adults living in rural Ecuador: Results of the Atahualpa Project

Abstract

The present study suggests that depression and anxiety are associated with poorer cognitive performance in elderly residents living in rural areas of developing countries.

Metabolic syndrome correlates poorly with cognitive performance in stroke-free community-dwelling older adults: a population-based, cross-sectional study in rural Ecuador

“…These field instruments have been previously validated in Atahualpa residents [11,12], and stroke was further confirmed in suspected cases by specialized neurological examination and neuroimaging studies, as previously described [14].…”

“…Adjusted models for socio-demographic factors (age, sex, education, alcohol intake) and additional risk factors (symptoms of depression, edentulism) were constructed. These covariates were included on the models according to previous studies in Atahualpa showing that symptoms of depression and severe edentulism correlated with worse cognitive performance [11,12]. Socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity were not included as covariates, since all the population had a rather homogeneous salary and more than 95 % of the people belonged to the same ethnic group.…”

“…In addition, most of this research has been conducted in the developed world, and there is little information on the relationship between metabolic syndrome and cognitive performance in underserved populations. As a part of The Atahualpa Project, we have previously investigated factors associated with poor cognitive performance in individuals living in this rural village, including severe edentulism and the presence of symptoms of depression [11,12]. In this study, we aimed to evaluate whether the metabolic syndrome correlates with a worse cognitive performance after considering covariates that have shown to modify cognition in this population.…”

Oily Fish Intake and Cognitive Performance in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: The Atahualpa Project

“…Besides demographics and cardiovascular risk factors, severe edentulism and symptoms of depression were chosen as confounding variables because they have shown to modify cognition in Atahualpa residents [24,25]. Education was not used as a covariate because of collinearity, since the MoCA assigns one extra point for those with low levels of instruction (almost 90 % of participants).…”

“…As previously detailed, each metric was categorized as ideal, intermediate or poor, and the cardiovascular health status was classified as poor if at least one metric was in the poor range [27]. Severe edentulism was defined in individuals having \10 remaining teeth [24] and symptoms of depression were assessed by the depression axis of the depression-anxiety-stress-21 scale, a reliable field instrument that measures dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self-deprecation, lack of interest/involvement, anhedonia, and inertia [25].…”