Cognitive Health Promotion Project in the Community

There is growing evidence supporting the protective effect of health behaviors against cognitive decline and dementia in older persons. With this increasing evidence and a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms, lifestyle modification is likely to be increasingly promoted as a convincing strategy for maintaining cognitive health in later life.

The study protocol included cognitive screening through the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), which has been validated for the Korean-speaking population ({YW, 1997 #88}Kang YW et al., 1997), recording of the subject's medical history. A Korean study in the community defined the cut-off point of K-MMSE score during the screening of dementia as 17/18 points; the sensitivity and specificity of the findings were 91% and 86%, respectively ({YW, 1997 #88}Kim et al., 2003). Based on these results, we defined cognitive impairment (CI) as the group that had a K-MMSE score lower than 17, and not cognitive impairment (NCI) was defined as the group that had a K-MMSE score higher than 18.

Inclusion criteria

• more than 60 years old

Exclusion criteria

• those with a history of significant hearing or visual impairment that rendered participation in the interview difficult
• those with a history of neurological disorders (e.g., stroke, Parkinson's disease, or active epilepsy)
• those with psychiatric illness (e.g., schizophrenia, mental retardation, severe depression, or mania)
• those taking psychotropic medications, or those with significant alcohol and other substance abuse.