The Relationship Between Cognitive Performance Using Tests Assessing a Range of Cognitive Domains and Future Dementia Diagnosis in a British Cohort: A Ten-Year Prospective Study

BACKGROUND: Exploring the domains of cognitive function which are most strongly associated with future dementia may help with understanding risk factors for, and the natural history of dementia. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association of performance on a range of cognitive tests (both global and domain specific) with subsequent diagnosis of dementia through health services in a population of relatively healthy men and women and risk of future dementia. METHODS: We examined the association between performance on different cognitive tests as well as a global score and future dementia risk ascertained through health record linkage in a cohort of 8,581 individuals (aged 48–92 years) between 2004–2019 with almost 15 years follow-up (average of 10 years) before and after adjustment for socio-demographic, lifestyle, and health characteristics. RESULTS: Those with poor performance for global cognition (bottom 10%) were almost four times as likely to receive a dementia diagnosis from health services over the next 15 years than those who performed well HR = 3.51 (95% CI 2.61, 4.71 p < 0.001) after adjustment for socioeconomic, lifestyle, and biological factors and also prevalent disease. Poor cognition performance in multiple tests was associated with 10-fold increased risk compared to those not performing poorly in any test HR = 10.82 (95% CI 6.85, 17.10 p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Deficits across multiple cognitive domains substantially increase risk of future dementia over and above neuropsychological test scores ten years prior to a clinical diagnosis. These findings may help further understanding of the natural history of dementia and how such measures could contribute to strengthening future models of dementia.