ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1624599
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling the Mental Health Impact of Physical Decline in Older Adults: A Holistic ApproachView all 7 articles
The effect of cognitive function heterogeneity on depression risk in older adults: a stratified analysis based on functional status
Provisionally accepted
- 1bengbu medical university, bengbu, China
- 2school of healthy management, Bengbu, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The mechanisms linking depression and cognitive decline in older adults in the context of global aging are unclear, and functional status may modulate the relationship. This study aimed to reveal the heterogeneity of cognitive functioning in older adults under different physical functional states through latent profile analysis (LPA) and to explore the patterns associated with depressive symptoms.Methods: Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2020 data, 4,158 older adults ≥60 years old were included, and the subtypes of cognitive functions (immediate memory, delayed memory, calculative ability, orientation, and visual construction) were classified by LPA. The associations between different cognitive categories and depressive symptoms were analyzed by stepwise logistic regression. The samples were stratified according to the physical functioning status into "functional intactness " and "functional impairment".In the functional intactness group, LPA identified three cognitive profiles, and the risk of depression was significantly higher in the low cognitive function with severe calculative impairment group (19.1%) (OR=1.52, 95% CI:1.21-1.91); in the functional impairment group, LPA identified four cognitive profiles, and the risk of depression in the low cognitive function with severe calculative impairment group (21.3%) was 3.37 times higher than that in the high cognitive function group (95% CI:2.40-4.74), and the low cognitive function with impaired calculative ability group was independently associated with depression risk (OR=2.65, 95% CI:1.77-3.94). The strength of the association between low cognition and depression was significantly higher in the functionally impaired population than in the functionally intact population (B-value: 1.25 vs 0.42, both p<0.001).Cognitive function heterogeneity significantly affects depression risk through functional status stratification, impaired functioning exacerbates the predictive role of low cognitive functioning for depression, and calculative impairment may be an early marker of executive function impairment. The findings provide a basis for the precise identification of people at high risk of depression and the development of stratified intervention strategies.
Keywords: Depression, Cognitive Function, latent profile analysis, functional status, CHARLS
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 06 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Li, Zhu, Sha and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuwen Liu, bengbu medical university, bengbu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.