Symptoms of dementia progression in cognitive impairment: the role of religious and spiritual activity

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study explores the role of religious and spiritual (R/S) activity in cognitive impairment. We used data from respondents with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) from the Health and Retirement Study and Aging, Demographics, and Memory sub-study to investigate associations between religious service attendance and behavioral expressions, cognition, and sleep disturbances independently at two different time points using Spearman’s Rho partial correlation. Religious service attendance was significantly associated with behavioral expressions, cognition, and sleep disturbances. Older adults with MCI who exhibited heightened levels of R/S activity engagement reported decreased behavioral expressions and better cognition at both time points.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• spirituality
• dementia
• lifestyle factors

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to acknowledge the work of Gayle Acton, PhD, RN on this study. The study detailed in this manuscript was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research through the receipt of Award Number (T32NR009356). The authors are solely accountable for the contents, and the information presented herein does not reflect the official positions of the National Institutes of Health.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval statement

The exemption status for the present research was approved by the University of Texas at Austin, as a result of the implementation of the de-identified data that is publicly available.

Informed consent

The Health and Retirement Study and Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study obtained written informed consent from participants.

Data sharing

Data are publicly available and may be found at: https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/about

Additional information

Funding

Author [KCB] is supported as a Mental Health/Psychology Jonas Scholar by Jonas Philanthropies and by a National Institutes of Health, National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Institute of Nursing Research (T32NR009365).