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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Are terminal decline and its potential indicators detectable in population studies of the oldest old? | | Author(s) | Graciela Muniz-Terrera, Fiona E Matthews, Blossom Stephan |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 26, no 6, June 2011 |
| Pages | pp 584-592 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/gps |
| Keywords | Terminal illness ; Death ; Cognitive processes ; Cognitive impairment ; Longitudinal surveys. |
| Annotation | The terminal decline hypothesis states that individuals experience a decline in cognitive function before death, particularly in the last three to eight years of life. The aim of this study was to discover whether this decline, measured using the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), could be detected in a sample of participants from the Cambridge City Over 75 Cohort Study, one in which 99% of participants had now died. Potential risk profiles were also examined. Decline and acceleration of this decline were detectable in the period before death. Some between person variation was detected in this pattern, which included: differences in cognitive performance by age at death; sex; initial cognitive impairment and mobility; in rate of decline by age at death; initial cognitive impairment and mobility; and differences in change in rate of decline by sex, initial cognitive impairment, and mobility. The data clearly demonstrate the phenomenon of decline in global cognition measurements with the proximity of death as well as potential variables that could influence that pattern. Further work is required on how to detect the onset of the acceleration of this decline in each individual together with the factors that could allow clinicians to distinguish between the normal and preterminal phases of change in extreme old age. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110822005 A |
| Classmark | CV: CW: DA: E4: 3J |
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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