Association Between Cognitive Deterioration and Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) Among Community-Dwelling Older People

Abstract

Cognitive deterioration causes limitation in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) performance among older people. However, this problem is often overlooked as an important feature in older people. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the association between cognitive deterioration and ADLs, and the association between cognitive deterioration and socio-demographic variables among community-dwelling older people. A purposive sampling method was used in a cross-sectional study of 115 community-dwelling older people aged more than 60 years old in Malaysia. The Malay Version of Short Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (MS-IQCODE) was used to measure the cognitive deterioration and the Modified Barthel Index (MBI) was used to measure the dependency in ADLs among the community-dwelling older people. One quarter of the participants have experienced noticeable cognitive deterioration (n = 31, 27.00%). A negative correlation was found between cognitive deterioration and ADLs (p = 0.00), with a medium effect size (r = -0.48). There was also a significant difference between cognitive deterioration with age, marital status, education level, and medical condition (p = 0.00). A noticeably large proportion of community-dwelling older people in Malaysia had cognitive deterioration, which further impacted the ADLs. There is a new demand for increasing awareness for healthy living older people geriatric services to community-dwelling older people.