Physical activity before stroke, small vessel disease and cognitive decline after stroke

Hypothesis

Higher level of PA before acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is associated with decreased risk of cognitive decline after stroke independently of stroke severity and cSVD burden.

Data

  • Physical Activity Scale in the Elderly (PASE) questionnaire
  • Modified Rankin Scale (mRS)
  • Level of education
  • Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly, short version (IQCODE)
  • Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), Scandinavian version
  • Wellbeing and depressive symptoms
  • Cerebral Small vessel disease burden (cSVD score)

Education

Characteristic Overall, N = 951 female, N = 331 male, N = 621
Level of education
    Folkeskole (9-10 år) 20 (21%) 11 (33%) 9 (15%)
    Gymnasiale/erhvervsfaglige uddannelser (11-12 år) 30 (32%) 8 (24%) 22 (36%)
    Erhvervsakademiuddannelser (13-14 år) 16 (17%) 5 (15%) 11 (18%)
    Professionsbachelor/universitetsbachelor (15-17 år) 18 (19%) 8 (24%) 10 (16%)
    Kandidatuddannelser (18-19 år) 10 (11%) 1 (3.0%) 9 (15%)
    PhD ( > 20 år) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
    Not classified 1 0 1
1 n (%)

SVD scoring

  • Number of microbleeds (SWI)
  • Superficiel siderose (SWI)
  • Lacunes (3D FLAIR)
  • White matter hyperintensities (3D FLAIR)
  • Enlarged Perivascular Space (3D FLAIR)
  • Atrophy (3D T1)

SVD score

Characteristic N = 201
svd_score
    0 2 (10%)
    1 4 (20%)
    2 3 (15%)
    3 5 (25%)
    4 1 (5.0%)
    5 2 (10%)
    8 1 (5.0%)
    9 1 (5.0%)
    10 1 (5.0%)
1 n (%)

IQCODE og RBANS

Characteristic Overall, N = 951 female, N = 331 male, N = 621
mRS at inclusion
    0 69 (73%) 22 (67%) 47 (76%)
    1 17 (18%) 6 (18%) 11 (18%)
    2 9 (9.5%) 5 (15%) 4 (6.5%)
IQCODE score 49.0 (48.0, 54.0) 49.5 (48.0, 53.0) 49.0 (48.0, 54.0)
RBANS 3 months 81 (73, 90) 83 (73, 90) 80 (74, 85)
RBANS 12 months 84 (73, 94) 86 (72, 92) 78 (73, 93)
1 n (%); Median (IQR)

RBANS plot

Andreas