People Who Think Positively about Aging Are More Likely to Recover Memory
Published:29 May2023 Source: Yale School of Public Health
A Yale School of Public Health study has found that older persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a common type of memory loss, were 30% more likely to regain normal cognition if they had taken in positive beliefs about aging from their culture, compared to those who had taken in negative beliefs. Researchers also found that these positive beliefs also enabled participants to recover their cognition up to two years earlier than those with negative age beliefs.This cognitive recovery advantage was found regardless of baseline MCI severity.
Becca Levy, professor of public health and of psychology and lead author of the study, predicted that positive age beliefs could play an important role in cognitive recovery because her previous experimental studies with older persons found that positive age beliefs reduced the stress caused by cognitive challenges, increased self-confidence about cognition, and improved cognitive performance.
The new study is the first to find evidence that a culture-based factor -- positive age beliefs -- contributes to MCI recovery. Older persons in the positive age-belief group who started the study with normal cognition were less likely to develop MCI over the next 12 years than those in the negative age-belief group, regardless of their baseline age and physical health.