Abstract |
Introduction: In the recent decades, it has been recorded a significant increase in the third-age population. Focusing on health, diabetes constitutes a serious disease which has been mainly linked with older population groups over the last years. Diabetes is a common pathological condition which is frequently met among pesons belonging in older population groups affecting approximately the 20% of the total population aged over 65 years.
Objective: The objective of this study is to measure the prevalence of cognitive functions for Greeks aged over 50 years old and further to investigate empirically the relationship between cognitive functions and diabetes using data from the Greek sample included in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE study).
Methods: The data used in this study were retrieved from the SHARE questiannaite survey (1st version, 2004). The sample contains information for Greek individuals reported in the European Study on Health, Ageing, and Retirement (SHARE Survey, (www.share-project.org) and it includes all persons aged over 50 years (regardless of gender) who participated in the study during the first wave (2004-2005). The total number of observations in the Greek sample is 2.669. The data used in this study contain a set of demographic variables, along with information on physical and mental health characteristics. The data analysis was based on covariance and multiple covarianve analysis
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methods while considering for possible bias arising from the presense of confounders.
Results: Diabetes was found to exhibit positive patterns with body weight, and variables related with physical activity and self-reported health status. On the other hand, cognitive functions were found to decrease as long as age, body weight, depression symptoms and chronic diseases increase.
Conclusions: The findings of the present study reveal that cognitive abilities are independent of the presence of diabetes. The results suggest that further research on the relationship between diabetes and cognitive impairment is required.
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