Abstract

MATOS, Ana Isabel Pinto de; MOURAO, Isabel  and  COELHO, Eduarda. Interaction between age, education, time of institutionalization and physical exercise in the cognitive function and depression in the elderly. Motri. [online]. 2016, vol.12, n.2, pp.38-47. ISSN 1646-107X.  https://doi.org/10.6063/motricidade.6805.

The purpose of this study was verifying the effect and interaction between age, schooling, institutionalisation and physical exercise in the cognitive function and depression in the elderly. The study comprised 39 institutionalized senior citizens (33 females and 6 males) aged between 64 and 96 (82.13±6.66). We used as evaluation tools: Mini Mental State Examination, Geriatric Depression Scale, Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices and a socio-demographic questionnaire. In order to understand the effect and interaction between variables we used the General Linear Model, introducing the time of institutionalization as a co-variable, and age (<85 years; ≥85 years), schooling (illiterate; 1st cycle of basic education) and physical exercise as variables. The results revealed a statistically significant difference regarding the time of institutionalization when dealing with depression (p= 0.003); and regarding schooling in the cognitive function (p= 0.030). Also, results concerning schooling versus age were significantly different in the cognitive function (p= 0.010) and intellectual ability (p= 0.032). Older individuals with higher levels of education presented superior results regarding the cognitive function and intellectual ability. We can thus infer that when it comes to older seniors schooling is the most decisive variable of the cognitive function, while depression depends on the time of institutionalization.

Keywords : elderly; cognitive function; depression; schooling; institutionalisation and physical exercise.

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