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About the Authors:
Raquel C. Gardner
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliations Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, California, United States of America
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4028-440X
Kenneth M. Langa
Affiliations Division of General Medicine, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, Veterans Affairs Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
Kristine Yaffe
Affiliations Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of AmericaAbstract
Background
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is extremely common across the lifespan and is an established risk factor for dementia. The cognitive profile of the large and growing population of older adults with prior TBI who do not have a diagnosis of dementia, however, has not been well described. Our aim was to describe the cognitive profile associated with prior TBI exposure among community-dwelling older adults without dementia-an understudied but potentially vulnerable population.
Methods and findings
In this population-based cohort study, we studied 984 community-dwelling older adults (age 51 y and older and their spouses) without dementia who had been randomly selected from respondents to the 2014 wave of the Health and Retirement Study to participate in a comprehensive TBI survey and who either reported no prior TBI (n = 737) or prior symptomatic TBI resulting in treatment in a hospital (n = 247). Mean time since first TBI was 38 ± 19 y. Outcomes assessed included measures of global cognitive function, verbal episodic memory, semantic fluency, and calculation as well as a measure of subjective memory (“How would you rate your memory at the present...