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. 2019 Apr 4;75(4):739–746. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glz086

Table 3.

Association Between Leisure Activities and Cognitive Impairment According to Age Groups

HR (95% CI) for Cognitive Impairmenta
Octogenarians Nonagenarians Centenarians
Number of participants 6,188 3,261 1,292
Number of events 1,270 1,047 587
Number of person-years 26,843 11,117 3,800
Watching TV or listening to radio
 Never 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.63 (0.55–0.73)*** 0.70 (0.60–0.81)*** 0.64 (0.52–0.80)***
 Almost every day 0.56 (0.49–0.65)*** 0.56 (0.48–0.67)*** 0.50 (0.39–0.63)***
Playing cards or mah-jong
 Never 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.63 (0.51–0.78)*** 0.73 (0.57–0.93)* 0.92 (0.61–1.39)
 Almost every day 0.76 (0.58–0.99)* 0.65 (0.44–0.96)* 0.63 (0.32–1.24)
Reading books or newspapers
 Never 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.84 (0.65–1.08) 1.02 (0.76–1.36) 0.51 (0.28–0.91)*
 Almost every day 0.69 (0.53–0.90)** 0.56 (0.40–0.78)*** 0.81 (0.50–1.34)
Religious activities
 Never 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.98 (0.83–1.17) 1.11 (0.90–1.37) 0.96 (0.69–1.33)
 Almost every day 1.13 (0.84–1.51) 1.12 (0.81–1.55) 1.16 (0.75–1.79)
Gardening
 Nerve 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.90 (0.75–1.08) 1.02 (0.82–1.25) 1.15 (0.84–1.57)
 Almost every day 1.01 (0.86–1.18) 1.03 (0.84–1.28) 1.16 (0.83–1.61)
Keeping domestic animals or pets
 Never 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
 Sometimes 0.90 (0.70–1.15) 1.06 (0.80–1.39) 1.41 (0.92–2.18)
 Almost every day 0.76 (0.66–0.91)* 0.61 (0.42–0.89)* 0.58 (0.55–0.93)*

Note: CI = Confidence interval; HR = Hazard ratio.

aAdjusted for age, sex, education level, marital status, living pattern and residence, smoking status, alcohol consumption, frequent vegetable consumption, frequent fruit consumption, regular exercise, BMI, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, housework, ADL, participation in other leisure activities, and baseline MMSE scores.

*p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001.