American elderly possess better memories than the English
American elderly possess better memories than the English
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Thursday, 25, Jun 2009 09:20
New research claims to show American over-65s perform significantly better in memory and awareness tests compared to their English counterparts.
The authors of the study, published in the journal BMC Geriatrics, claim the results may be due to differences in levels of depression, education and the aggressiveness of treatment for heart disease.
Researchers used previous data to compare the brain heath of elderly people in both countries and were initially surprised by their findings.
Lead author Kenneth Langa, from the University of Michigan, said: "The better cognitive performance of US adults was actually quite surprising, since US adults had a higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, which are generally associated with cognitive decline and poorer mental function."
During the research participants from both countries were tested on their immediate and delayed memory recall involving ten common nouns.
They heard the words spoken and were asked to repeat as many as possible immediately, then asked other survey questions and were finally asked to repeat the words again five minutes later. During the interview, participants were also asked what day, date, month and year it was.
Taken together, the answers were used to create 24-point scale of cognitive function.
The final results showed the average score for the 8,299 American participants was 12.8, while the 5,276 English subjects only averaged 11.4 out of 24.
The authors of the study claim the difference is almost equal to the magnitude associated with about ten years of aging.
Mr Langa concludes: "Higher levels of education and net worth in the US probably accounted for some of the better cognitive performance. Furthermore, US adults reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms than English adults."
Differences in aggressiveness of cardiovascular disease treatment are also suggested as possible explanations for the English adults' poor showing.