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Marital Status and Living Situation During a 5-Year Period Are Associated With a Subsequent 10-Year Cognitive Decline in Older Men: The FINE Study

¹ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
² Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands.
³ National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy.
⁴ National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland.
⁵ Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Address correspondence to B. M. van Gelder, MSc, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Centre for Prevention and Health Services Research, PO Box 1, Internal Postal Code 101, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, the Netherlands. E-mail: Boukje.van.Gelder{at}rivm.nl

We investigate the association between marital status and living situation (over 5 years) on 10-year subsequent cognitive decline. The study population consisted of 1,042 men aged 70–89 years in 1990, who participated in the longitudinal Finland, Italy, the Netherlands Elderly (known as FINE) Study. We measured cognition by using the Mini-Mental State Examination, and we assessed marital status (married vs unmarried) and living situation (living with others vs living alone) with a standardized questionnaire. We performed repeated measurement analyses and made adjustments for age, education, country, smoking, alcohol, chronic diseases, marital status or living situation, and baseline cognition. Men who lost a partner, who were unmarried, who started to live alone, or who lived alone during the 5-year period had at least a two times stronger subsequent cognitive decline compared with men who were married or who lived with someone in those years.