BACKGROUND: The magnitude of cognitive change before and after incident heart failure (HF) is unclear. We investigated whether incident HF is associated with changes in cognitive function at the time of diagnosis and accelerated trajectory in cognitive decline in the subsequent years.
METHODS: We used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of US adults aged 50 years or older. Participants underwent a cognitive assessment at baseline (wave 5, 2000), and at least 1 other time point (from wave 6 [2002] to wave 15 [2020]). The outcomes were change in global cognition, memory, and executive function. Outcomes were standardized into Z-scores, with higher scores indicating better cognitive performance. Linear mixed-effects models estimated changes in cognition at the time of HF (change in the intercept) and the rate of cognitive change over the years after HF (change in the slope), after adjusting for pre-HF cognitive trajectories and potential confounders.
RESULTS: We included 12 850 adults (mean [SD] age, 66.1 [9.4] years; 61.8 % women). Over a median follow-up of 16 years (interquartile range: 8 to 20 years), 1457 participants had incident HF. The annual rate of cognitive decline before HF diagnosis among individuals with incident HF was similar to that of participants who remained HF-free throughout follow-up. However, incident HF was associated with subsequent decreases in global cognition (-0.073 SD [95 % CI -0.109 to -0.038]), memory (-0.070 SD [95 % CI -0.108 to -0.032]), and executive function (-0.054 SD [95 % CI -0.092 to -0.016]) around the time of the HF diagnosis. Moreover, individuals with incident HF vs those without HF demonstrated faster and long-term declines in global cognition (-0.011 SD/year [95 % CI -0.018 to -0.004]) and executive function (-0.008 SD/year [95 % CI -0.015 to -0.001]), but not in memory (-0.006 SD/year [95 % CI -0.013 to 0.001]) over the years after HF compared with pre-HF slopes.
CONCLUSIONS: Incident HF was associated with subsequent decreases in cognitive function at the time of diagnosis and accelerated cognitive decline over the following years.
