Relationship between cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress and declarative memory decline during aging: Impact of age and sex.

Aim: To analyze the relationship between memory performance and the neuroendocrine and cardiovascular response to acute psychosocial stress in healthy older people, and the sex and age impact in this relationship.

Methods: We randomly selected 100 literate older adults, without cognitive or functional impairment. The neuroendocrine stress response was evaluated by measuring the concentration of salivary cortisol, whereas cardiovascular reactions were determined based on blood pressure and heart rate measures taken before, during and after participant exposure to an acute psychosocial stressor (the Trier social stress test [TSST]).

[Subjective memory complain in healthy elderly: influence of depressive symptoms, perceived stress and self-esteem].

The current study analyzed the relationship between perceived stress, depressive symptoms and self-esteem in elderly with and without subjective memory complain. Two-hundred four elderly were included (104 without and 100 with subjective memory complain) assesse using the Memory Assessment Complain Questionnaire (MAC-Q). The study protocol was composed by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Self-Esteem Scale of Rosenberg (SES).