Understanding Health Deterioration and the Dynamic Relationship between Physical Ability and Cognition among a Cohort of Danish Nonagenarians

Table 1

Characteristics of the study population in the first wave in 1998 when the individuals were 93 years old.

Characteristics	Sex
	M		F		T
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Sample	584	25.8	1678	74.2	2262	100.0
Education							<0.001
Elementary	292	50.0	1254	74.7	1546	68.3
Vocational	192	32.9	238	14.2	430	19.0
Higher	100	17.1	186	11.1	286	12.6
Living alone							<0.001
No	289	49.5	598	35.6	887	39.2
Yes	295	50.5	1080	64.4	1375	60.8
Loss of a close person							0.033
No	165	28.3	556	33.1	721	31.9
Yes	419	71.7	1122	66.9	1541	68.1
Self-rated health							0.013
Very poor or poor	307	52.6	886	52.8	1193	52.7
Acceptable	204	34.9	553	33.0	757	33.5
Good or excellent	73	12.5	239	14.2	312	13.8
Depression							0.008
29–52	184	31.5	591	35.2	775	34.3
23–28	172	29.5	545	32.5	717	31.7
17–22	228	39.0	542	32.3	770	34.0
Smoke							<0.001
Current smoker	144	24.7	171	10.2	315	13.9
Past smoker	316	54.1	372	22.2	688	30.4
Never smoked	124	21.2	1135	67.6	1259	55.7
Body Mass Index							<0.001
< 22	157	26.9	750	44.7	907	40.1
22–28	348	59.6	785	46.8	1133	50.1
> 28	79	13.5	143	8.5	222	9.8
Physical activity							<0.001
None/irrelevant	328	56.2	1193	71.1	1521	67.2
Light	177	30.3	390	23.2	567	25.1
Heavy	79	13.5	95	5.7	174	7.7
Number of medications							0.057
4+	228	39.0	714	42.6	942	41.6
2‐3	153	26.2	423	25.2	576	25.5
0‐1	203	34.8	541	32.2	744	32.9

Men versus women from Pearson χ² test.