Longitudinal declines in event-based, but not time-based, prospective memory among community-dwelling older adults

Age-related deficits in prospective memory (PM) are well established, but it is not known whether PM is stable over time among older adults. In this study, 271 community-dwelling older adults underwent abaseline neuropsychological evaluation and up to three follow-up visits, approximately 2.4 years apart. Mixed effects linear longitudinal models revealed small, but significant linear declines and between-subjects variability in event-based PM performance. There were no changes in performance on measures of time-based PM, retrospective memory, or executive functions. Changes in event-based PM were not associated with age, retrospective memory, executive functions, or everyday functioning. Among older adults, event-based PM appears to be more susceptible to linear declines than does time-based PM, which future research might examine with regard to the possible underlying cognitive mechanisms of cue encoding, monitoring, detection, and retrieval processes.