Adverse life events and late-life cognitive decline in a Chinese cohort: The Shanghai Aging Study

Objective: This study aimed to demonstrate the association between adverse life events (ALEs) and the risk of late-life cognitive decline in older community-dwelling individuals in China.

Methods: We prospectively followed up 1657 dementia-free participants with ALE data at baseline in the Shanghai Aging Study. The cohort was categorized into four subgroups (depression with ALEs, depression without ALEs, no depression with ALEs, and no depression without ALEs). Cox regressions were conducted to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) for incident dementia stratified by all participants and depressed and nondepressed participants.

Results: We identified 168 incident dementia cases over a mean period of 5.2 years. The cumulative dementia incidence in nondepressed participants with ALEs was the lowest among the four subgroups. Nondepressed participants with ALEs had a lower risk of incident dementia (HR [95% CI]: 0.50 [0.27-0.92], P = .0267) than those without ALEs, adjusted for age, sex, education, apolipoprotein E ε4 (APOE ε4), body mass index, cigarette smoking, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, stroke, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) at baseline, and anxiety.

Conclusions: This study explored a significant inverse association between ALEs and the risk of incident cognitive decline among older adults without depression in China. Interventions for depression prevention immediately after ALEs may reduce the risk of cognitive decline later in life.