Neuropsychological and Physical Trajectories in Neurotypical and High-cognitive Performing Older Adults

Abstract

The maintenance of high cognitive performance in old age has increasinglybecome a public health interest due to associations between cognition,well-being, longevity, and autonomy. The objective of the researchis to investigate cognitive, physical, and psychological trajectories ofneurotypical older adults (NOAs) and high performing older adults(HPOAs). An exploratory study to investigate 21 NOAs and six HPOAs(mean age 71, SD = ± 3.59), followed up for one year. The older adultswere submitted to physical fitness, quality of life, anxiety, depression,RAVLT, ACE-R, and Stroop tests, being assessed at three moments:baseline, six months after the cognitive (MEMO) or stimulation (Stimullus)interventions, and six months after the multimodal interventions, whichcould be physical or psychopedagogical interventions (health educationlectures). Nonparametric statistical tests (Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon)were performed with p≤0.05. The results demonstrated that the cognitivemeasures were good predictors of cognitive performance and we observedpositive correlations between cognitive and mood measures. The olderadults with high performance had a lower prevalence of depressivesymptoms. There were gains in global cognitive performance, mood, and inphysical fitness variables associated with multimodal interventions, evidentin the neurotypical group