_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1440 https://www.id-press.eu/mjms/index ID Design Press, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences. 2019 May 15; 7(9):1440-1445. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2019.300 eISSN: 1857-9655 Clinical Science The Relationship between Hypertension and Cognitive Function Impairment in the Elderly Endy Juli Anto 1 , Laura Octavina Siagian 2 , Jekson Martiar Siahaan 3 , Hendrika Andriana Silitonga 4 , Sony Eka Nugraha 5* 1 Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Methodist Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia; 2 Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Methodist Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia; 3 Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine,University of Methodist Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia; 4 Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Methodist Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia; 5 Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia Citation: Anto EJ, Siagian LO, Siahaan JM, Silitonga HA, Nugraha SE. The Relationship between Hypertension and Cognitive Function Impairment in the Elderly. Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2019 May 15; 7(9):1440-1445. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2019.300 Keywords: Hypertension; Cognitive Function; Elderly *Correspondence: Sony Eka Nugraha. Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia. E-mail: sonyekanugraha@usu.ac.id Received: 10-Feb-2019; Revised: 17-Apr-2019; Accepted: 18-Apr-2019; Online first: 30-Apr-2019 Copyright: © 2019 Endy Juli Anto, Laura Octavina Siagian, Jekson Martiar Siahaan, Hendrika Andriana Silitonga, Sony Eka Nugraha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Funding: This research did not receive any financial support Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist Abstract BACKGROUND: Hypertension is still a health problem both in developed and developing countries. Hypertension can cause various complications; one of them is cognitive function impairment. AIM: This study aimed to look at the relationship of hypertension with cognitive function. This research can also be useful to help optimise the health of the elderly, maximise quality of life and avoid hypertension as a risk factor for cognitive impairment in the elderly at the Karya Kasih Nursing Homes, Medan from May to June 2018. METHODS: This research was carried out by analytic observational with cross-sectional research approach. In this study, 57 elderly from Karya Kasih Nursing Homes Medan who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria participated. Assessment of cognitive function used Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Six Item Cognitive Impairment Test (6CIT) and Abbreviated Mental Test Score (AMT) instruments. RESULT: This study obtained a significant relationship between the history of hypertension with impaired cognitive function (p = 0.003). The results of the cognitive function examination with MMSE showed that among 57 elderly, 16 people (43.2%) were normal and 21 people (56.8%) had impaired cognitive function in the first degree hypertension group, besides that, 3 people were normal (15%) and 7 people (85%) had impaired cognitive function in the second degree hypertension group (p = 0.031). Based on the result of mild and severe cognitive function impairment, among 12 people (57.1%) and 9 people (42.9%) had a mild and severe cognitive function impairment, respectively, in first-degree hypertension. 3 people (17.6%) and 14 people (82.4%) had a mild and severe cognitive function impairment, respectively, in the second-degree hypertension (p = 0.013). The 6-CIT instrument also showed a significant relationship between the severity of hypertension and impaired cognitive function (p = 0.027), and there was no significant relationship with AMT instruments (p = 0.078). CONCLUSION: There was a relationship between the history or duration and degree of hypertension with cognitive dysfunction in the elderly at the Karya Kasih Nursing Home Medan. Introduction Hypertension is still one of the major challenges of diseases in the world, both developed and developing countries. Hypertension is the causes of death around 9.4 million people every year throughout the world, and it is expected to continue increasing along with changes in human lifestyle and technology [1]. It’s estimated that 20% or one in five people in developed countries, such as America, has hypertension. This situation showed that hypertension in developed countries is the most dominant health problem and requires serious treatment. The high mortality rate due to hypertension causes the developed countries to be alert of this disease attack [2], [3]. In America, from 67 million adults, 31% or one in three people experience hypertension. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),