ArticlePloS one2018
Cataract surgery and age-related cognitive decline: A 13-year follow-up of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 32 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- International Practice Recommendations for the Recognition and Management of Hearing and Vision Impairment in People with Dementia.Gerontology · 2022Guideline
- Bridging neurobiological mechanisms and translational applications in cognitive science: inspirations from the MCCS-NYUAD meeting 2025.Molecular brain · 2026Review
- Cataract Surgery in Cognitive Impairment: Navigating the Accessibility Challenge in European Healthcare.Ophthalmology and therapy · 2025Review
- Review
- Early life adversity and late life dementia in the Harmonised Cognitive Assessment Protocol network (U.S., China, England and Europe).medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Cognitive Trajectory Before and After Cataract Surgery: A Population-Based Approach.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- Trajectories of Cognitive Change and Their Association with All-Cause Mortality Among Chinese Older Adults: Results from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Aging-associated sensory decline and Alzheimer's disease.Molecular neurodegeneration · 2024Review
- Associations of hearing and visual loss with cognitive decline and dementia risk: a 25-year follow-up of the Maastricht Aging Study.Age and ageing · 2024Article
- Article
- Review
- Postoperative evaluation of visual and cognitive functions following cataract surgery in patients with age-related cataracts: a prospective longitudinal study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- How old is too old for routine cataract surgery?Eye (London, England) · 2023Article
- Why Are Old-Age Disabilities Decreasing in Sweden and Denmark? Evidence on the Contribution of Cognition, Education, and Sensory Functions.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Associations between Visual Acuity and Cognitive Decline in Older Adulthood: A 9-Year Longitudinal Study.Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS · 2023Article
- Longitudinal Changes in Hearing and Visual Impairments and Risk of Dementia in Older Adults in the United States.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- Cognitive dysfunction and the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- Dual impairments in visual and hearing acuity and age-related cognitive decline in older adults from the Rancho Bernardo Study of Healthy Aging.Age and ageing · 2021Article
- Cataract Surgery Complexity and Surgical Complication Rates Among Medicare Beneficiaries With and Without Dementia.American journal of ophthalmology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundVisual impairment has been associated with lower cognitive ability among older adults, yet little is known about whether improving visual function with cataract surgery would be associated with slower cognitive decline. This study aimed to assess whether trajectories of cognitive decline differed before and after cataract surgery and compare those trajectories between older adults with cataract surgery and without cataract. METHODS AND
findingsData were drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Wave 1 (2002/03) until Wave 7 (2014/15). The study population consisted of 2,068 individuals who underwent cataract surgery between Wave 2 and Wave 6 as the treatment group and 3,636 individuals with no cataract as the control group. We included only respondents who took part in a minimum three waves. Propensity score matching method was used to match the individuals in the treatment group with those in the control group. After we put an "artificial" intervention point for the individuals in the control group at the point that the matched person has cataract surgery, spline method was used to identify differences in cognitive trajectories pre- and post-cataract surgery. In the treatment group, we found that cataract surgery was positively associated with episodic memory scores after controlling for the potential covariates (β = 4.23, p<0.001). Episodic memory scores declined with older age, but the decline in episodic memory scores was slower after cataract surgery (β = -0.05, p<0.001) than before cataract surgery (β = -0.1, p<0.001). Although the episodic memory among respondents in the control group before intervention (β = -0.08, p<0.001) declined slower than those in the intervention group (β = -0.1, p<0.001), the declines in episodic memory scores were similar in both groups after the intervention (control: β = -0.05, p<0.001; intervention: β = -0.05, p<0.001).
conclusionsCataract surgery may have a positive impact on trajectories of cognitive decline in later life. Further research is required to identify the mechanism to explain the association between cataract surgery and cognitive ageing, and whether early intervention towards vision correction results in a reduction in dementia risk.
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