Effects of Health Status on Word Finding in Aging

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate effects of health status on word‐finding difficulty in aging, adjusting for the known contributors of education, sex, and ethnicity. DESIGN: Cross‐sectional. SETTING: Community. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred eighty‐four adults aged 55 to 85 (48.6% female) participating in an ongoing longitudinal study of language in aging. MEASUREMENTS: Medical, neurological, and laboratory evaluations to determine health status and presence or absence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Lexical retrieval evaluated with the Boston Naming Test (BNT) and Action Naming Test. RESULTS: Unadjusted regression models showed that presence of diabetes mellitus was not related to naming. Presence of hypertension was associated with significantly lower accuracy on both tasks (P