How do aging, socioeconomic status, and gender affect verbal fluency, cognitive skills, depression, and daily living activities in older people?

Introduction

Old age is a period associated with health risks, leading to losses in various skills. Aim: This study aims to examine the verbal fluency and cognitive skills of older individuals, their levels of depression, and daily living activities as well as to identify the correlations between these and some other variables. Method: 77 participants (48 F; 29 M) aged 65 and over who had not received a diagnosis were administered a "ParticipantInformation Form", "Verbal Fluency Test", "Montreal Cognitive Assessment Turkish Version (MOBID)", "Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)", and "Barthel Index of Basic Activities of Daily Living (ADL)". Statistical analysis of the research data was performed using IBM SPSS 24.0 software.

Results

There was a moderate, significant positive correlation between verbal fluency scores and both MOBID (r = 0.542, r = 0.604, r = 0.343) and ADL scores (r = 0.365, r = 0.323, r = 0.254), whereas a moderate, significant negative correlation was found between verbal fluency scores and GDS scores (r = -0.551, r = -0.422, r = -0.493). s (Verbal fluency and MOBID scores showed significant differences across age groups, whereas ADL and depression scores did not; additionally, verbal fluency, MOBID, and GDS varied significantly by education and income levels while ADL scores remained unaffected; notably, only verbal fluency scores differed by gender, with female participants demonstrating higher performance.

Conclusion

Significant correlations were observed between verbal fluency, cognition, depression, and daily living activity skills. As the cognitive and daily living activity skills of participants increase or their levels of depression decrease, their verbal fluency skills improve. The findings underscore the importance of supporting all variables and highlight the significance of interdisciplinary collaboration.