Daily Fluctuations in Everyday Cognition: Is It Meaningful?

Objective: This study examined whether there are daily fluctuations in everyday cognition that are consistent with daily fluctuations often observed in traditional measures of basic cognitive abilities. Method: Two hundred six independently living older adults (age range = 60-91 years) were asked to complete a computerized cognitive battery over eight occasions within a 2- to 3-week period. Results: Using multilevel model, significant within-person variability was observed across the Daily Everyday Cognition Assessment (DECA; 46%), with 54% between-person variability. At each occasion, better performance on the DECA was significantly associated with better performance on simple reaction time (p <.01) and memory (Auditory Verbal Learning Task, p <.01) even after accounting for time, age, education, and performance on other cognitive measures. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that within-person performance fluctuations can be observed for everyday cognition tasks, and these fluctuations are consistent with daily changes in basic cognitive abilities.