Cognitive impairment associated with poor asthma control among older adults

SAN ANTONIO — Elevated cognitive impairment appeared linked to weak asthma control among older adults, according to an abstract presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting.

In a sub-study of a longitudinal study assessing depression’s impact on aging and asthma, Paula J. Busse, MD, FAAAAI, associate professor in the department of medicine and division of clinical immunology at Mount Sinai, and colleagues assessed 81 adults (38% Hispanic; 34% Black) aged 60 years and older with asthma to determine if cognitive impairment was related to poorer control of asthma.

Using linear regression analyses, researchers compared patients’ cognitive measures on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to their level of asthma control, as assessed by the Asthma Control Questionnaire.

Additionally, researchers assessed patients’ plasma drawn at baseline to find out if there was a link between cognitive impairment, asthma control and patterns of cytokine inflammation. Greater systemic inflammation, especially non-type 2 inflammation, has been shown to be related to cognitive impairment, according to the abstract.

Overall, researchers observed that patients with higher cognitive impairment appeared more likely to have poorer asthma control (mean difference, – 0.12; 95% CI, –0.19 to –0.05) after adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, income and depression,

Also, cognitive impairment was associated with increased plasma levels of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, interleukin (IL)-1 receptor antagonist, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, tumor necrosis factor-alpha and IL-15 (P < .05).

“Additional investigation is necessary to determine if systemic markers of inflammation (associated with cognitive impairment) contribute to poorer asthma control in this at-risk group,” Busse and colleagues wrote.