A new study of 149 elderly inpatients with schizophrenia found that nearly half (47.7%) had cognitive impairment, defined as a score below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). The research, published as a cohort study, looked at factors that might be linked to cognitive problems in this group.
Researchers discovered that higher scores on measures of perceived social support (MSPSS) and activities of daily living (ADL) were each independently associated with lower odds of cognitive impairment. Specifically, for each unit increase in social support score, the odds of cognitive impairment dropped by about 39%, and for each unit increase in ADL score, the odds dropped by about 45%. On the other hand, having diabetes was linked to a much higher chance of cognitive impairment, though this finding had a wide confidence interval, meaning the true effect could be smaller or larger.
The study also used a computer technique called K-means clustering to identify three distinct groups of patients based on their clinical features. These groups were strongly tied to whether a person had cognitive impairment, suggesting that different patient profiles may need different care approaches.
It is important to note that this was a retrospective cross-sectional study, so it can only show links, not prove that one thing causes another. The wide confidence interval for the diabetes link means that result is less precise. The researchers say that prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings. For now, the results suggest that supporting social connections and daily living skills might be helpful for elderly people with schizophrenia, but more research is needed before any firm recommendations can be made.
