Prevalence of cognitive impairment and associated factors in older people

Background Older people are the fastest-growing age group, with the highest risk of cognitive impairment. This study assessed the prevalence and factors associated with cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older people. Methods Older people were interviewed and accomplished through sociodemographic and health questionnaires. The mean described quantitative variables and standard deviation or interquartile range and median, the significance level adopted was 5 % (p < 0.05), and the association between the quantitative variables was evaluated using the Pearson correlation coefficients or Spearman tests. Results The research population comprised 165 long-lived adults aged ≥80. The youngest one was 80, and the oldest one was 94 years old. The participants were 84.8 ± 3.6 years old, female (63 %) with a mean of education of 2,9 ± 1,8 years. A poor performance in the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was found in 58 (35.2 %) individuals when adjusted for educational level. After adjustment for confounding factors, body mass index (BMI) (p = 0.09), total older adults' income (up to 1 minimum wage [mw], p = 0.023; over 1 to 2 mw, p = 0.023), functional disability (Moderate dependence 75 %, p = 0.038; Moderate dependence 50 %, p = 0.081; Moderate dependence 25 %, p = 0.054), and the anxiety scale (p = 0.032), remained associated with cognitive impairment. Conclusions This study showed that BMI, total older adults' income, functional disability, and anxiety are related to cognitive impairment in older people from 80. This study has limitations, such as the fact that it is a cross-sectional study, the number of individuals, and there were no comparisons among different ages and populations.