Background: The mortality pattern of individuals with impaired verbal memory (IVM) has not yet been well described. We sought to describe the risk of all‐causes, as well as specific causes of death associated with IVM.

Method: We used the data of 4151 nationally representative adults ≥60 years old who participated in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–1994, and completed one non‐contextual (i.e., word list memory) and one contextual delayed‐recall tests (i.e., short story recall). The participants were passively followed up through 31 December 2006. We determined the hazard ratio of death from all‐causes and specific cause through Cox proportional hazard regression.

Results: Severe and moderate IVM were present in 268 (6.5%) and 495 (11.9%) participants at baseline survey, and 2550 deaths occurred by the end of 18‐year follow‐up (median = 12 years). The medians of survival time adjusted for all‐causes death were 6.17(95%CI: 5.50, 6.92), 9.50 (8.92, 10.25), and 13.17 (12.75, 13.58) years, respectively for the individuals with severe, moderate, and no IVM. Severe IVM was significantly associated with death from cardio‐cerebral vascular diseases [hazard ratio = 1.70, 95%CI = (1.36–2.12)], stroke [2.60 (1.69–3.99)], and Alzheimer's disease [3.50 (1.40–8.76)]. The shortened survival time of the participants with IVM was mainly driven by the deaths of cerebral‐cardiovascular diseases, which accounted for almost half of all deaths.

Conclusion: The predictability of memory scores to early cerebral‐cardiovascular deaths demonstrated that central challenge among individuals with cognitive impairment was cardiovascular diseases management.