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Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal

BACKGROUND: No papers have examined the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects (i.e, > = 80 years old) asking for driving license renewal. We hypothesize that, even in this highly functioning population, age, sex, and education infl...

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Autores principales: Bernardelli, Giuseppina, Caruso, Palmina, Travaini, Guido, Merzagora, Isabella, Gualdi, Francesca, Sartori, Raffaela D. G., Mari, Daniela, Cesari, Matteo, Edefonti, Valeria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353803/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32652945
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01637-1
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author Bernardelli, Giuseppina
Caruso, Palmina
Travaini, Guido
Merzagora, Isabella
Gualdi, Francesca
Sartori, Raffaela D. G.
Mari, Daniela
Cesari, Matteo
Edefonti, Valeria
author_facet Bernardelli, Giuseppina
Caruso, Palmina
Travaini, Guido
Merzagora, Isabella
Gualdi, Francesca
Sartori, Raffaela D. G.
Mari, Daniela
Cesari, Matteo
Edefonti, Valeria
author_sort Bernardelli, Giuseppina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: No papers have examined the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects (i.e, > = 80 years old) asking for driving license renewal. We hypothesize that, even in this highly functioning population, age, sex, and education influence cognitive performance, expressed as total or single domain (raw) test scores. This research question allows to describe, identify, and preserve independence of subjects still able to drive safely. METHODS: We examined cross-sectionally a cohort of > = 80 years old subjects (at enrollment) asking for driving license renewal in the Milan area, Italy, 2011–2017. The analysis was restricted to 3378 first and 863 second visits where individual’s cognitive performance was evaluated. According to the study protocol, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test was administered at the first visit for driving license renewal and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test at the second visit, following an additional renewal request. Ordinary least squares regression models were fitted at either time points. In each model, we included age, sex, and education as independent variables, whereas the dependent variable was total or single domain score for either test. In total, we fitted 15 regression models to assess our research hypothesis. RESULTS: The median subject in our sample reached the maximum scores on domains targeting operational and tactical abilities implied in safe driving, but had sub-optimal scores in the long-term memory domain included among the strategic abilities. In multiple models, being > = 87 (versus 80- < 86 years old) significantly decreased the mean total and memory scores of MMSE, but not those of the MoCA. Females (versus males) had significantly higher mean total and long-term memory scores of either tests, but not other domains. Mean total and single domain scores increased for increasing education levels for either tests, with increments for high school graduates being ~ 2 of those with (at most) a junior high school diploma. CONCLUSIONS: Sex and education, as well as age to a lesser extent, predict cognitive functioning in our oldest old population, thus confirming that concepts like cognitive reserve and successful ageing are valuable constructs in the identification of older subjects still able to drive.
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spelling pubmed-73538032020-07-15 Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal Bernardelli, Giuseppina Caruso, Palmina Travaini, Guido Merzagora, Isabella Gualdi, Francesca Sartori, Raffaela D. G. Mari, Daniela Cesari, Matteo Edefonti, Valeria BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: No papers have examined the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects (i.e, > = 80 years old) asking for driving license renewal. We hypothesize that, even in this highly functioning population, age, sex, and education influence cognitive performance, expressed as total or single domain (raw) test scores. This research question allows to describe, identify, and preserve independence of subjects still able to drive safely. METHODS: We examined cross-sectionally a cohort of > = 80 years old subjects (at enrollment) asking for driving license renewal in the Milan area, Italy, 2011–2017. The analysis was restricted to 3378 first and 863 second visits where individual’s cognitive performance was evaluated. According to the study protocol, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test was administered at the first visit for driving license renewal and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test at the second visit, following an additional renewal request. Ordinary least squares regression models were fitted at either time points. In each model, we included age, sex, and education as independent variables, whereas the dependent variable was total or single domain score for either test. In total, we fitted 15 regression models to assess our research hypothesis. RESULTS: The median subject in our sample reached the maximum scores on domains targeting operational and tactical abilities implied in safe driving, but had sub-optimal scores in the long-term memory domain included among the strategic abilities. In multiple models, being > = 87 (versus 80- < 86 years old) significantly decreased the mean total and memory scores of MMSE, but not those of the MoCA. Females (versus males) had significantly higher mean total and long-term memory scores of either tests, but not other domains. Mean total and single domain scores increased for increasing education levels for either tests, with increments for high school graduates being ~ 2 of those with (at most) a junior high school diploma. CONCLUSIONS: Sex and education, as well as age to a lesser extent, predict cognitive functioning in our oldest old population, thus confirming that concepts like cognitive reserve and successful ageing are valuable constructs in the identification of older subjects still able to drive. BioMed Central 2020-07-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7353803/ /pubmed/32652945 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01637-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bernardelli, Giuseppina
Caruso, Palmina
Travaini, Guido
Merzagora, Isabella
Gualdi, Francesca
Sartori, Raffaela D. G.
Mari, Daniela
Cesari, Matteo
Edefonti, Valeria
Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title_full Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title_fullStr Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title_full_unstemmed Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title_short Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
title_sort socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353803/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32652945
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01637-1
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