Aim: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the association between older adults' contact with their adult children and their cognitive decline. Furthermore, contact with children was considered in terms of visual contact and non-visual contact.
Methods: Data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging from 2006 to 2014 was assessed using longitudinal data analysis, and 6634 participants were included at baseline with no missing information. The χ2 -test and generalized linear mixed model with a binary distribution were used to investigate the association between solidarity of adult children and parents, and cognitive decline.
Results: Non-visual contact with the first-born child was significantly associated with cognitive decline. With daily contact as the reference: for two to three times weekly, the OR was 1.224 (P = 0.033); for two to three times monthly, the OR was 1.357 (P = 0.003); for five to six times yearly, the OR was 1.3816 (P = 0.008); and for very rarely, the OR was 1.786 (P < 0.0002), showing a significant effect for all groups. In the final sex-, age- and marriage status-specific analysis, non-visual contact with the first-born child was significantly associated with cognitive decline for women, people aged ≤64 years and people who were married.
Conclusions: The present study validated previous research on the importance of social contact, and further assessed different modes of contact to show that non-visual contact is more beneficial than visual contact in terms of cognitive decline. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 1501-1506.
Keywords: adult; children; cognition; elderly family; solidarity.
© 2018 Japan Geriatrics Society.