title: More Education May Limit Disability and Extend Life For People With Cognitive Impairment.
abstract: Education is associated with longer life and less disability. Living longer increases risks of cognitive impairment, often producing disability. We examined associations among education, disability, and life expectancy for people with cognitive impairment, following a 1992 cohort ages 55+ for 23 063 person-years (Panel Study of Income Dynamics, n = 2165). We estimated monthly probabilities of disability and death for 7 education levels, adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, and cognitive status. We used the probabilities to simulate populations with age-specific cognitive impairment incidence and monthly disability status through death. For those with cognitive impairment, education was associated with longer life and less disability. Among them, college-educated white women lived 3.2 more years than those with <8 years education, disabled 24.4% of life from age 55 compared with 36.7% (P< .0001). Increasing education will lengthen lives. Living longer, more people will have cognitive impairment. Education may limit their risk of disability and its duration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA sladitka@uncc.edu.
authors.forename: Sarah B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Laditka
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA.
authors.forename: James N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Laditka
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; active life expectancy; cognitive health; dementia; disability; education; morbidity compression; older people; panel study