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Challenging the relationship of grip strength with cognitive status in older adults
Author(s) -
Hooyman Andrew,
MalekAhmadi Michael,
Fauth Elizabeth B.,
Schaefer Sydney Y.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.5441
Subject(s) - grip strength , cognition , psychology , hand strength , effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance , physical medicine and rehabilitation , longitudinal study , gerontology , physical therapy , medicine , psychiatry , pathology
Objective Grip strength is a widely used motor assessment in ageing research and has repeatedly been shown to be associated with cognition. It has been proposed that grip strength could enhance cognitive screening in experimental or clinical research, but this study uses multiple data‐driven approaches to caution against this interpretation. Furthermore, we introduce an alternative motor assessment, comparable to grip dynamometry, but has a more robust relationship with cognition among older adults. Design Associations between grip strength and cognition (measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment) were analysed cross sectionally using multivariate regression in two datasets: (1) The Irish LongituDinal Study on Ageing (TILDA; N = 5,980, community‐dwelling adults ages 49–80) and (2) an experimental dataset ( N = 250, community‐dwelling adults aged 39–98). Additional statistical simulations on TILDA tested how ceiling effects or skewness in these variables influenced these associations for quality control. Results Grip strength was significantly but weakly associated with cognition, consistent with previous studies. Simulations revealed this was not due to skewness/ceiling effects. Conversely, a new alternative motor assessment (functional reaching [FR]) had a stronger, more robust and more sensitive relationship with cognition compared to grip strength. Conclusions Grip strength should be cautiously interpreted as being associated with cognition. However, FR may have a stronger and clinically useful relationship with cognition.