Examination of the cognitive function of Japanese community-dwelling older adults in a class for preventing cognitive decline during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Minoru Kouzuki
  2. Shota Furukawa
  3. Keisuke Mitani
  4. Katsuya Urakami

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Abstract

We examined the changes in cognitive function due to restrictions in daily life during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in community-dwelling older adults with mild cognitive decline. This was a retrospective, case-control study. The participants include 88 older adults with mild cognitive decline (mean age = 81.0 [standard deviation = 6.5] years) who participated in a class designed to help prevent cognitive decline. This class was suspended from early-March to end of May 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and resumed in June 2020. We collected demographic and cognitive function test data (Touch Panel-type Dementia Assessment Scale [TDAS]) before and after class suspension and questionnaire data on their lifestyle and thoughts during the suspension. Change in TDAS scores from before and after the suspension was used to divide the participants into decline (2 or more points worsening) and non-decline (all other participants) groups, with 16 (18.2%) and 72 (81.8%) participants in each group, respectively. A logistic regression model showed that the odds ratio (OR) for cognitive decline was lower in participants whose responses were “engaged in hobbies” (OR = 0.07, p = 0.015), “worked on a worksheet about cognitive training provided by the town hall” (OR = 0.19, p = 0.026), and “had conversations over the phone” (OR = 0.28, p = 0.0495). There was a significant improvement in TDAS scores after class was resumed ( p < 0.01). A proactive approach to intellectual activities and social ties may be important for the prevention of cognitive decline during periods of restrictions due to COVID-19. We found that cognitive function test scores before class suspension significantly improved after resuming classes. We speculate that continued participation in this class led to positive behavioral changes in daily life during periods of restriction due to COVID-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0248446
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.26.21252497: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The ethics committee of Tottori University Faculty of Medicine (Yonago, Japan) approved the study (number: 20A076) and all procedures complied with the Declaration of Helsinki.
    Consent: The need for consent was waived by the ethics committee of Tottori University Faculty of Medicine because this was an observational study that used pre-collected information.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis: Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (version 25, IBM Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) and EZR (version 1.41, Saitama Medical Center, Jichi Medical University, Saitama, Japan), which is a graphical user interface for R (The R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) [18].
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Finally, this study has several limitations. First, the subjects of this study were community-dwelling older adults, who participated in a class for the prevention of cognitive decline. We did not examine older adults who do not participate in such classes. Therefore, we may not be able to generalize these results to those older adults who experienced restrictions due to COVID-19 but do not participate in such programs. The second limitation is that we cannot control for the carryover effect of attending the classes. In a previous study, it was suggested that the effect of the cognitive decline prevention program used in the class may not be sustained for up to 6 months after the intervention is stopped [1]. However, in this study, the class was only suspended for around three months. Therefore, although we observed improvements in cognitive function after the class suspension, it is possible that participation in the class before the suspension may have had some influence. The third limitation is the small sample size. Specifically, the number of participants with cognitive decline was small (n = 16). The fourth research limitation is that we did not consider all the possible confounding factors that may affect cognitive function. For example, the status of infection of COVID-19 in participants may also have an effect on cognitive performance [39, 40] and daily activities. As the data available were limited due to retrospective study, we could only adjust for a few factors. ...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.26.21252497v1 on medRxiv