ABSTRACT
<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Hypertension (HTN) is a very prevalent public health problem and as the population ages, cognitive impairment (CI) is also going to be a public health burden. However, the relationship between hypertension duration and cognitive function declination worldwide is still unknown. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of HTN duration on CI in Chinese population.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>At baseline, 1 386 HTN patients and 293 normotensive (NT) people were enrolled. The HTN patients were further divided into four subgroups (duration of HTN <6 years, 6-10 years, 11-20 years, and >20 years) according to the HTN duration and were screened for cognitive function with neuropsychological tests including mini-mental-state-examination (MMSE) and clock-drawing-test (CDT) in comparison with the NT group.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>More HTN patients had CI (45.3%) than NT subjects (30.4%), and increased with HTN duration (P < 0.000 1). Compared with the scores of MMSE and CDT in the NT group, the declines were higher in the HTN patients (P < 0.000 1), and in the four HTN subgroups, both MMSE and CDT scores fall when the HTN duration increased (P < 0.05). Furthermore, in the HTN population without CI, the trend in alteration of CI was relatively mild but still existed (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>People with HTN are more likely to have CI and the possibility and aggravation increases the prolongation of HTN duration, both in amnesic and nonamnesic function.</p>
Subject(s)
Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Asian People , Cognition , Physiology , Cognition Disorders , Cross-Sectional Studies , HypertensionABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the relationship between duration of hypertension and cognitive function in adult hypertension patients.Methods A total of 224 subjects with normal blood pressure were enrolled in group A,and 1 296 patients with poorly controlled hypertension were further divided by the duration of hypertension into group B (≤5 years),group C (6-10 years),group D (11-20years) and group E (＞ 20 years).Face-to-face surveys were conducted in all the subjects by trained physicians using Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) and Clock-Drawing-Test (CDT).The incidences of cognitive impairment were compared among the five groups and the relationship between duration of hypertension and cognitive function were analyzed by SPSS 18.0 software.Results (1) Compared with the normotensive group,the hypertensive group performed worse in the scores of MMSE,CDTs,the memory type cognitive function and the non-memory type cognitive function (MMSE:Z =-2.585,P =0.010;C DTs:Z =-3.689,P ＜ 0.001 ; memory type cognitive function:Z =-2.718,P =0.007 ; non-memory type cognitive function:Z =-1.994,P =0.046).(2) The incidences of cognitive impairment in the five groups were 3.6％ (8/224),6.6％ (26/393),16.6％ (72/433),19.7％ (55/279) and 33.5％(64/191),respectively.(3) Compared with the group A,the cognitive function was significantly worse in the group E (MMSE:Z =61.314,P ＜ 0.001 ; CDTs:Z =44.642,P ＜ 0.001 ; memory type cognitive function:Z =35.703,P ＜ 0.001 ; non-memory type cognitive function:Z =54.440,P ＜ 0.001).Conclusions Hypertension is a risk factor for the cognitive dysfunction.The incidence of cognitive dysfunction and the severity are positively associated with the duration of hypertension.In those with hypertension over 20 years,the cognitive dysfunction occurs much more obviously.