Association between activities of daily living according to dementia status in older adults during COVID-19 isolation in Lima: a secondary analysis

Objectives: To determine the association between basic and instrumental activities of daily living based on dementia status and memory problems in older adults during COVID-19-related isolation in Lima. Materials and methods: This is a retrospective secondary cohort analysis. The study population comes from the secondary analysis of the database from the study “Understanding how grades of frailty affect the evolution of COVID-19”. Results: The average age of older adults was 76.5 years (SD=9.37; n=444), with 51.1% of the population being male (n=227). The frequency of a dementia history was 29.1% (n=129), and 64.4% had a history of memory problems (n=286). Most of them came from emergency hospital services (40.0%; n=178) and hospitalization (31.3%; n=139). In the bivariate analysis between basic and instrumental activities of daily living and other covariates, we found that the average score for instrumental activities of daily living and the average score for basic activities of daily living were significant. No independent patients with dementia were identified, which limited the multivariate analysis for this variable. In the Poisson regression, dependence on ABVD was associated with a higher probability of memory problems (PR=1.95; 95% CI: 1.43–2.66). This finding remained after adjustment for age, sex, and number of comorbidities. Conclusions: An association was found between a history of dementia and memory problems with basic activities of daily living in older adults, even after adjusting for age, sex, and number of comorbidities, but not with instrumental activities.