Joint Trajectories of Physical Function and Cognition for Dementia Risk

8-year longitudinal data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) tracks 6,175 older adults, representing 35.4 million individuals. The dataset likely contains joint trajectories of objective physical function and cognitive decline, used to identify phenotypes and assess dementia risk. It was authored by Shiyi Wang and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Identify distinct phenotypes of physio-cognitive aging based on joint trajectory analysis.
• Model the temporal precedence between physical decline and cognitive decline using stratified cross-lagged panel models.
• Analyze mediating pathways, such as life space constriction, on incident dementia risk.
• Evaluate the moderating effect of sensory impairment on the relationship between physical decline and dementia.
• Improve exploratory diagnostic modeling for dementia by incorporating physical metrics.

Strengths

• Data is based on a nationally representative cohort of 6,175 older adults.
• The longitudinal study spans 8 years, enabling trajectory analysis.
• Results include specific hazard ratios, such as a nearly five-fold increased risk (HR=4.85) for identified phenotypes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is very small (19.7 KB), suggesting it may contain summary results or a single table rather than raw longitudinal records.

Provenance

Source

National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS)

Collection Method

Parallel-Process Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA) and stratified Cross-Lagged Panel Models (CLPM) applied to longitudinal survey data.

Time Range

The longitudinal data covers an 8-year period, though specific start and end years are not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-22 05:36:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States (based on the NHATS source).