A study concludes that thinking positively about aging helps to recover memory

2023-04-16 14:55:22

Older people with mild cognitive impairment have a 30% more likely to regain memory normally if they had adopted positive beliefs about aging compared to those who have more negative thoughts.

This is explained in a study led by the Yale School of Public Health (United States) and published in the magazine ‘JAMA Network Open’. The work is based on 1,716 participants aged at least 65 years.

The researchers found that these positive beliefs also allowed participants to regain their cognition up to two years sooner than those who thought negatively about age. This cognitive recovery advantage was found regardless of the initial severity of mild cognitive impairment.

“Most people assume there is no recovery from mild cognitive impairmentBut in fact half of those who have it recover. Little is known about why some recover and others do not. That’s why we looked at positive age beliefs, to see if they would help provide an answer,” says Becca Levy, professor of public health and psychology, and lead author of the study.

Levy points out that positive age beliefs could play an important role in cognitive recovery because previous experimental studies with older people found that it reduces stress caused by cognitive challenges, increases self-confidence about cognition, and improves cognitive performance.

The new study is the first to find evidence that a culture-based factor — positive beliefs about age — contributes to recovery from mild cognitive impairment.

Older people in the group positive age belief who began the study with normal cognition had less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment in the next 12 years than those in the negative age belief group, regardless of their starting age and physical health.