Patricia A. Boyle, Ph.D., and colleagues from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, assessed purpose of life, defined as the tendency to derive meaning from life's experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goal directedness that guides behavior, among 951 community-dwelling elderly individuals without dementia using the 10-item scale derived from Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being.
During a mean follow up of four years, the researchers found that 16.3 percent of individuals developed Alzheimer's disease. After adjusting for age, sex, and education, having a greater purpose in life was associated with a significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (hazard ratio, 0.48). The association remained after further adjusting for depressive symptoms, neuroticism, social network size, and chronic medical conditions (hazard ratio, 0.60). A greater purpose in life was also associated with a significantly lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (hazard ratio, 0.71) and a slower rate of cognitive decline.
"During up to seven years of follow-up, greater purpose in life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease such that a person with a high score (90th percentile) on the purpose in life measure was approximately 2.4 times more likely to remain free of Alzheimer's disease than was a person with a low score (10th percentile)," Boyle and colleagues conclude.
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