Pharmacological treatment of increased vascular risk and cognitive performance in middle-aged and old persons: six-year observational longitudinal study

Table 1 Characteristics of the study population at the first measurement (baseline)

	All	Control	Treatment^a	P value^b
n (%)	1.934 (100)	1.678 (100)	256 (100)	N/A
Age (years), mean (SD)	51 (10)	50 (10)	58 (10)	< 0.001
Age groups, n (%)				< 0.001
35 to 44 years	542 (28)	520 (31)	22 (9)
45 to 54 years	713 (37)	641 (38)	72 (28)
55 to 64 years	449 (23)	357 (21)	92 (36)
65 to 74 years	190 (10)	133 (8)	57 (22)
≥ 75 years	40 (2)	27 (2)	13 (5)
Gender, n (%)				< 0.001
Men	916 (47)	760 (45)	156 (61)
Women	1018 (53)	918 (55)	100 (39)
Educational level, n (%)				< 0.001
Low (≤12 years)	624 (32)	498 (30)	126 (49)
High (≥13 years)	1310 (68)	1180 (70)	130 (51)
Race, n (%)
Western-European	1849 (96)	1604 (96)	245 (96)	0.62
Other	72 (4)	61 (4)	11 (4)
Cardiovascular history^c, n (%)	19 (1)	4 (< 1)	15 (6)	< 0.001
Treatable vascular risk (points)^d, mean (SD)	1 (3)	1 (3)	4 (3)	< 0.001
Cognitive performance
RFFT (points), mean (SD)	74 (26)	76 (25)	64 (25)	< 0.001
VAT (points), mean (SD)	10 (2)	10 (2)	9 (2)	< 0.001
Composite z-score^e, mean (SD)	0.03 (0.78)	0.08 (0.77)	−0.30 (0.80)	< 0.001

Abbreviations: RFFT Ruff Figural Fluency Test, VAT Visual Association Test, SD Standard deviation, N/A Not applicable
^a Treatment group included persons who had treatment of vascular risk factors for the first time at the first measurement of cognitive function
^bP values refer to comparisons between persons with and without treatment of vascular risk factors
^c All nineteen persons with a cardiovascular history had a cardiac event. There were no cerebrovascular of peripheral vascular event
^d Treatable vascular risk is based on the components of Framingham Risk Score for Cardiovascular Disease that are amenable to treatment and included diabetes mellitus, current smoker status, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, systolic blood pressure and use of blood pressure lowering medication [24]
^e Cognitive performance was measured as a composite score of two tests (z-score): the Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT) and the Visual Association Test (VAT) [20, 22]

ISSN: 1471-2377