The health impact of living with a cognitively impaired elderly spouse: depressive symptoms and social functioning

The purpose of this study was to identify the social and psychological consequences of living with a cognitively impaired spouse among community-dwelling elderly individuals. The study sample consisted of 318 spouse pairs drawn from a representative sample of noninstitutionalized elderly individuals. Our principal findings were that: (a) Cognitive impairment in wives is significantly (p less than .05) associated with depressive symptomatology in husbands, whereas cognitive impairment in husbands is only weakly (p greater than .20) associated with depressive symptomatology in wives; (b) Decreased participation in social/leisure activities is selectively related to spouses' level of cognitive functioning among both men and women; (c) The relationship between wives' cognitive impairment and husbands' depressive symptoms is influenced by perceived availability of financial support from friends and relatives, but not by ADL limitations in wives, lack of emotional or instrumental support from wives, household responsibilities among husbands, or lack of participation in social/leisure activities in husbands.