Association between home layout connectivity and cognitive ability in community dwelling older adults: Implication for occupational therapy

Physical environment has long been recognized within occupational therapy as a key factor contributing to residents’ functional abilities. However, the specific aspects of the physical environment that matter and the extent to which they do so remain less understood. This paper reports a quantitative study of the relationship between a characteristic of the physical home environment—the degree of interconnectedness of its rooms—and the cognitive ability of adults. Working with demographic, health, and home layout data collected from a sample of community-dwelling older adults in Atlanta, Georgia (N=72, Mage=69.5), we found that the cognitive functioning determined by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score was significantly associated with the average connectivity and mean depth of the homes while controlling participants’ age and education. Regression analysis suggested home connectivity independently explained a little more than 4% of the variance in the MoCA scores. The results further revealed that the relationship may be better modeled using non-linear models, and that the increase in the numbers of circulation rings as average room connectivity rises may be partly, but not entirely, responsible for its association with cognitive ability. The study points to directions for further work, including causal modeling, based on recommendations that could be developed for homes to support older adults’ abilities to continue to reside in their own homes as they grow older.