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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Systematic review of the effect of education on survival in Alzheimer's disease | | Author(s) | Matt Paradise, Claudia Cooper, Gill Livingston |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 21, no 1, February 2009 |
| Pages | pp 25-32 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Educational status [elderly] ; Longevity ; Correlation ; Literature reviews. |
| Annotation | According to the cognitive reserve model, higher levels of education compensate for the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), delaying its clinical manifestations. This model suggests that for any level of cognitive impairment, people with more education have worse neuropathology than those with less education and will therefore have shorter survival post-diagnosis. This is the first systematic review of the relationship between more education and decreased survival in people with AD. The literature was reviewed systematically, searching electronic databases and reference lists of included studies. The researchers used the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine criteria for inclusion and rating of the validity of cohort studies that reported the relationship of education to survival in people with AD. 22 studies met inclusion criteria. Grade A evidence was found (highest evidence level) which meant that more education was not associated with decreased survival post-diagnosis in AD. Only one of 11 studies rated 1b (highest level of quality) supported the hypothesis that more education predicted reduced survival after adjusting for age, gender and dementia severity; it comprised African-Caribbean participants, who had on average more severe cognitive impairment than other studies' participants. Education does delay the onset of the dementia syndrome in AD, but does not lead to earlier death after diagnosis. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-090825226 A |
| Classmark | EA: F:V: BGA: 49: 64A |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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