Longitudinal declines in event-based, but not time-based, prospective memory among community-dwelling older adults

ABSTRACT

Age-related deficits in prospective memory (PM) are well established, but it is not known whether PM is stable over time among older adults. In this study, 271 community-dwelling older adults underwent abaseline neuropsychological evaluation and up to three follow-up visits, approximately 2.4 years apart. Mixed effects linear longitudinal models revealed small, but significant linear declines and between-subjects variability in event-based PM performance. There were no changes in performance on measures of time-based PM, retrospective memory, or executive functions. Changes in event-based PM were not associated with age, retrospective memory, executive functions, or everyday functioning. Among older adults, event-based PM appears to be more susceptible to linear declines than does time-based PM, which future research might examine with regard to the possible underlying cognitive mechanisms of cue encoding, monitoring, detection, and retrieval processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• memory for intentions
• cognition
• neuropsychological tests
• executive function
• activities of daily living

Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (grant number R01-MH073419 to Steven Paul Woods).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health [R01-MH073419].