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David A. Snowdon, PhD; Lydia H. Greiner, BSN; David R. Wekstein, PhD; Deborah Danner, PhD; William R. Markesbery, MD
University of Kentucky Lexington

Susan J. Kemper, PhD
University of Kansas Lawrence

James A. Mortimer, PhD
University of South Florida Tampa

JAMA. 1996;275(24):1879.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.

—Dr Massie and Mr Miranda raise issues that we considered when investigating the relationship between writing style demonstrated in autobiographies written at an average age of 22 years and cognitive function and Alzheimer disease assessed an average of 58 years later. We found a strong relationship between low idea (proposition) density in autobiographies written in early life and poor cognitive function and Alzheimer disease in late life.

In agreement with Massie, the correlation of density of positive emotion words with idea density was 0.26 (P=.01), and the correlation of density of negative emotion words with idea density was 0.19 (P=.07). However, the correlation with cognitive function, as measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination score in late life, was 0.66 (P=.001) for idea density, 0.19 (P=.07) for the density of positive emotion words, and 0.19 (P=.07) for the density of negative emotion words. While . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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