Cognitive function of Residential Care Facility residents during COVID-19 pandemic deconfinement

• Autor(a) principal: Simões, Ana Deolinda da Conceição Certo
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/13444
• topic: Covid-19; Desconfinamento; Estruturas Residenciais para Pessoas Idosas; Fatores de Risco; Função Cognitiva; Idoso; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Médicas::Ciências da Saúde::Medicina

The form of transmission of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 prompted social isolation to be adopted as one of the ways to contain the pandemic, which was imposed in a more prolonged and restricted way on residents of Residential Care Facilities (RCF). We aimed to investigate if COVID-19 deconfinement had an impact on cognitive function of RCF’s residents, evaluated with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and if there was any correlation with other measured geriatric scales or indicators of the social engagement of those residents. Altogether, 27 residents from a RCF were evaluated over 11 months during which social isolation measures were eased, at three different assessment moments (October 2021, March 2022 and September 2022). In the analysis of the first assessment data we found that MMSE score had a positive association with Katz score and handgrip measures and a negative association with age and number of children. We found that the MMSE did not evolve consistently over those 11 months. We found that MMSE variation between October 2021 and March 2022 had a positive and significant correlation with age, the number of children and the number of weekly calls. Between March 2022 and September 2022 we found a negative and statistically significant correlation with age. Thus it was possible to identify factors that contributed to the variation of cognitive function of RCF’s residents. The analysis of these factors can help introduce changes in the cognitive approach of the institutionalized older adults.