Investigation on status and influential factors of cognitive function of the community-dwelling elderly in Changsha City

The present study describes the results of investigations on the cognitive status and the influential factors of cognitive function in the community-dwelling elderly of Changsha City, China. Analyzing data of 1000 subjects over 60 years of age was collected by the self-designed demographic information sheet, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Activity of Daily Living (ADL) scales. The result showed that MMSE mean score was 24.35 +/- 4.91, ranging from 4 to 30: there were 275 subjects with cognitive impairments of various extents. These results reveal that the elderly in this study differed quite strongly in their cognitive function; over one-fourth of them showed slight to severe cognitive impairment. Moreover, the influential factors such as gender, age, marriage status, education level, occupation, income, hobby. caregivers, medical history, self-appraised health, and ADL were detected. Of these parameters, age, education level, gender, self-appraised health, ADL, medical history, and caregivers were the striking influential factors. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.