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Social relationships and risk of dementia: a population-based study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

Daniel Eriksson Sörman ,
Michael Rönnlund ,
Anna Sundström ,
Rolf Adolfsson  and
Lars-Göran Nilsson
Daniel Eriksson Sörman*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Michael Rönnlund
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Anna Sundström
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden Centre for Population Studies/Ageing and Living Conditions, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Rolf Adolfsson
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Sciences, Division of Psychiatry, Umeå University, S-901 85 Umeå, Sweden
Lars-Göran Nilsson
Affiliation:
Aging Research Center (ARC), Karolinska Institutet, S-113 30 Stockholm, Sweden Umeå Center of Functional Brain Imaging, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Daniel Eriksson Sörman, Department of Psychology, Umeå University, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden. Phone: 0046-90-786 63 13; Fax: 0046-90-786 66 95. Email: daniel.erikssonsorman@psy.umu.se.
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Abstract

Background:

The objective was to examine whether aspects of social relationships in old age are associated with all-cause dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods:

We studied 1,715 older adults (≥ 65 years) who were dementia-free at baseline over a period of up to 16 years. Data on living status, contact/visit frequency, satisfaction with contact frequency, and having/not having a close friend were analyzed using Cox proportional hazards regressions with all-cause dementia or AD as the dependent variable. To control for reverse causality and to identify potential long-term effects, we additionally performed analyses with delayed entry.

Results:

We identified 373 incident cases of dementia (207 with AD) during follow-up. The variable visiting/visits from friends was associated with reduced risk of all-cause dementia. Further, a higher value on the relationships index (sum of all variables) was associated with reduced risk of all-cause dementia and AD. However, in analyses with delayed entry, restricted to participants with a survival time of three years or more, none of the social relationship variables was associated with all-cause dementia or AD.

Conclusions:

The results indicate that certain aspects of social relationships are associated with incident dementia or AD, but also that these associations may reflect reverse causality. Future studies aimed at identifying other factors of a person's social life that may have the potential to postpone dementia should consider the effects of reverse causality.

Keywords

dementiaAlzheimer’s diseaselongitudinalsocial relationshipssocial network
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 27 , Issue 8 , August 2015 , pp. 1391 - 1399
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2015 

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