Wellness and cognition among community dwelling older adults

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20003302

The purpose of this research is to develop an innovative method to measure and score wellness and examine the association between wellness and cognition among aging adults. This research was guided by William Hettler's (1976) Dimensions of Wellness theoretical framework. The sample of 5,604 community dwelling older adults was drawn from members of the COLLAGE consortium. These subjects complete an annual Wellness Assessment Tool (WEL) and Community Health Assessment (CHA). The WEL of the COLLAGE assessment system provided the data to create dimensions of wellness scores. Rasch analysis and Master's Partial Credit method were used to create logit values for each item within the five dimensions of wellness. The logit values for items within each dimension were combined to create dimension of wellness scores. Cognition was measured using the Cognitive Performance Score (CPS). The CPS is generated from select items on the CHA and WEL. The CPS correlates highly with the Mini Mental Status Examination. Hotelling's T2 revealed that the four dimensions of wellness demonstrated a statistically significant higher mean difference in cognitively healthy older adults compared to cognitively impaired older adults F (4, 5595)=47.57, p