{"doi":"10.1159/000542395","title":"The Temporal Relation of Physical Function with Cognition and the Influence of Brain Health in the Oldest-Old","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: Physical function and cognition seem to be interrelated, especially in the oldest-old. However, the temporal order in which they are related and the role of brain health remain uncertain. METHODS: We included 338 participants (mean age 93.1 years) from two longitudinal cohorts: the UCI 90+ Study and EMIF-AD 90+ Study. We tested the association between physical function (Short Physical Performance Battery, gait speed, and handgrip strength) at baseline with cognitive decline (MMSE, memory tests, animal fluency, Trail Making Test (TMT-) A, and digit span backward) and the association between cognition at baseline with physical decline (mean follow-up 3.3 years). We also tested whether measures for brain health (hippocampal, white matter lesion, and gray matter volume) were related to physical function and cognition and whether brain health was a common driver of the association between physical function and cognition by adding it as confounder (if applicable). RESULTS: Better performance on all physical tests at baseline was associated with less decline on MMSE, memory, and TMT-A. Conversely, fewer associations were significant, but better scores on memory, TMT-A, and digit span backward were associated with less physical decline. When adding measures for brain health as confounder, all associations stayed significant except for memory with gait speed decline. CONCLUSION: In the oldest-old, physical function and cognition are strongly related, independently of brain health. Also, the association between physical function and cognitive decline is more pronounced than the other way around, suggesting a potential for slowing cognitive decline by optimizing physical function. INTRODUCTION: Physical function and cognition seem to be interrelated, especially in the oldest-old. However, the temporal order in which they are related and the role of brain health remain uncertain. METHODS: We included 338 participants (mean age 93.1 years) from two longitudinal cohorts: the UCI 90+ Study and EMIF-AD 90+ Study. We tested the association between physical function (Short Physical Performance Battery, gait speed, and handgrip strength) at baseline with cognitive decline (MMSE, memory tests, animal fluency, Trail Making Test (TMT-) A, and digit span backward) and the association between cognition at baseline with physical decline (mean follow-up 3.3 years). We also tested whether measures for brain health (hippocampal, white matter lesion, and gray matter volume) were related to physical function and cognition and whether brain health was a common driver of the association between physical function and cognition by adding it as confounder (if applicable). RESULTS: Better performance on all physical tests at baseline was associated with less decline on MMSE, memory, and TMT-A. Conversely, fewer associations were significant, but better scores on memory, TMT-A, and digit span backward were associated with less physical decline. When adding measures for brain health as confounder, all associations stayed significant except for memory with gait speed decline. CONCLUSION: In the oldest-old, physical function and cognition are strongly related, independently of brain health. Also, the association between physical function and cognitive decline is more pronounced than the other way around, suggesting a potential for slowing cognitive decline by optimizing physical function.","journal":"Gerontology","year":2024,"id":460359,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9212,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1288541,"name":"Maryam Badissi","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584226,"name":"Vikram Venkatraghavan","orcid":"0000-0001-9759-0462","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":332142,"name":"Davis C. Woodworth","orcid":"0000-0002-6256-857X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103903,"name":"Fanny Orlhac","orcid":"0000-0002-5588-1867","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1287897,"name":"Jean‐Sébastien Vidal","orcid":"0000-0001-6770-0720","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242544,"name":"Frederik Barkhof","orcid":"0000-0003-3543-3706","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":49957,"name":"Claudia H. Kawas","orcid":"0000-0001-9577-230X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242554,"name":"Pieter Jelle Visser","orcid":"0000-0001-8008-9727","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":308297,"name":"María M. Corrada","orcid":"0000-0002-8168-8593","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":615509,"name":"Majon Muller","orcid":"0000-0002-7127-6413","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1287898,"name":"Hanneke Rhodius‐Meester","orcid":"0000-0002-6476-4670","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":669003,"name":"Nienke Legdeur","orcid":"0000-0002-0646-934X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:04:03.568045Z","pmid":"39504937","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}