Late life anxiety is associated with decreased memory and executive functioning in community dwelling older adults

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Abstract

This study assessed the degree to which anxiety and depression symptoms are associated with memory and executive functioning among community-dwelling older adults (N = 120; M age = 74.9 years, SD = 7.2 years; 62% women). Participants completed the Geriatric Anxiety Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, Comorbidity Index, California Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition (CVLT-II), and the Trail Making, Verbal Fluency, and 20 Questions subtests of the Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System (D–KEFS). Multiple regression analyses indicated that anxiety and depression predicted poorer ability to learn new information (CVLT-II, Trials 1-5). Both anxiety and depression predicted performance on the D–KEFS Trail Making test, Number–Letter Switching condition. Anxiety, but not depression, predicted decreased categorization as measured by the D–KEFS 20 Questions, Initial Abstraction Score. Depression but not anxiety, predicted performance on D–KEFS Letter Fluency and Category Fluency. Findings suggest that anxiety and depression have unique relationships with cognitive functioning in community-dwelling older adults.

Highlights

► We examine relationships between anxiety and memory and executive functioning among older adults. ► Anxiety predicted lower ability to learn new information. ► Anxiety predicted lower ability to organize information to be learned. ► Anxiety predicted decreased categorization. ► Anxiety relates to ability to learn new information, set-switching, and categorizing information.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 120 community dwelling older adults (60 years old and older) participated in this study. They were recruited through a registry of older adults who have expressed interest in participating in research. They were contacted via phone call and invited to participate. Participants were eligible to participate if they were 60 years old or older and could arrange their own transportation to the testing center. Demographics of the sample are provided in Table 1.

Anxiety

Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS).

Results

Mean scores on the GAS, GDS, and CMI, and mean standard scores on the CVLT-II and D–KEFS measures are presented in Table 1. The mean GAS total score of 12.6 in this sample is similar to the average score in the normative sample (Segal et al., 2010) of community-dwelling older adults and represents relatively mild levels of anxiety with significant variation (range = 0–42). GAS and GDS total scores were uncorrelated with age or education. Pearson correlations between the primary measures of this

Discussion

This study examined the relationships among anxiety and depression symptoms, memory, and executive functioning in a large sample of community-dwelling older adults. We found that anxiety symptoms, particularly affective symptoms of anxiety, were related to decreased performance on an immediate verbal memory recall test, and that this relationship was explained by semantic clustering ability. Additionally, anxiety symptoms were related to lowered performance on several tests of executive

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