2024/10/09 by Anna Marie Rosická, Vanessa Teckentrup, Sol Fittipaldi +9 · 1 voice · 17 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Clinical psychology #Cognition #Dementia #Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research #Depression (economics) #Developmental psychology #Disease #Loneliness #Medicine #Older Adults Driving Studies #Population #Psychiatry #Psychology #Socioeconomic status #Technology Use by Older Adults
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/alz.13885
published in Alzheimer s & Dementia 20(11), 7437-7452 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2024/10/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
INTRODUCTION: Early detection of both objective and subjective cognitive impairment is important. Subjective complaints in healthy individuals can precede objective deficits. However, the differential associations of objective and subjective cognition with modifiable dementia risk factors are unclear. METHODS: We gathered a large cross-sectional sample (N = 3327, age 18 to 84) via a smartphone app and quantified the associations of 13 risk factors with subjective memory problems and three objective measures of executive function (visual working memory, cognitive flexibility, model-based planning). RESULTS: Depression, socioeconomic status, hearing handicap, loneliness, education, smoking, tinnitus, little exercise, small social network, stroke, diabetes, and hypertension were all associated with impairments in at least one cognitive measure. Subjective memory had the strongest link to most factors; these associations persisted after controlling for depression. Age mostly did not moderate these associations. DISCUSSION: Subjective cognition was more sensitive to self-report risk factors than objective cognition. Smartphones could facilitate detecting the earliest cognitive impairments. HIGHLIGHTS: Smartphone assessments of cognition were sensitive to dementia risk factors. Subjective cognition had stronger links to most factors than did objective cognition. These associations were not fully explained by depression. These associations were largely consistent across the lifespan.