The health impact of living with a cognitively impaired elderly spouse

he detrimental impact of caring for elderly cognitively impaired family members has been demonstrated in several studies of non-representative samples. The goal of this analysis was to identify in an elderly community cohort the psychological and physical health consequences of living with a cognitively impaired spouse. The study sample consisted of 318 non-institutionalized spouse pairs participating in the Yale Health and Aging Project survey of a probability sample of 2812 elderly residents of New Haven, Connecticut. Cognitive functioning was measured with the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ). Men whose wives made 4+ errors had more depressive symptoms (mean CES-D score = 10.71) than did men whose wives made 2-3 (mean = 6.61) or 0-1 errors (mean 5.59, p...