Overview

• Analysis of 13,765 Health and Retirement Study participants followed for a median eight years found 13% developed cognitive impairment based on two consecutive low mTICS scores.
• Higher purpose scores were linked to lower incidence even after adjusting for age, education, depressive symptoms, race or ethnicity, and APOE4 genetic risk.
• The protective association translated to a small average delay in onset of about 1.4 months over eight years.
• Effects were observed across racial and ethnic groups, with statistically significant links in Black and White participants and a similar trend in Hispanic participants.
• Authors stress the study is observational with biennial testing and potential reverse causality, and they highlight purpose-building as a low-cost target for future trials compared with drug therapies.