A recent study out of Yale University challenges a commonly-held belief about the impacts of getting older in America.
The idea for the study started out when co-author Becca Levy had been thinking about individuals who show improvement later on in life, like Diana Nyad, who swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida at the age of 64, after not being able to complete the journey before.
Levy, a professor with the Yale School of Public Health, says this goes against a common stereotype: that old age is a period of continuous and inevitable decline.
“We tried to see whether these examples of improvement in later life are exceptions or are they more common,” Levy said.
Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), Levy and her co-author Martin Slade analyzed the cognitive and physical health of over 11,000 older adults for up to 12 years.
The cognitive health measure included various recall and working memory questions. The
physical health measures had participants walk at a normal speed back and forth over a hallway a distance, using mobility aids if needed. This data was recorded every two years.
The results surprised Levy: 45% of participants saw cognitive and/or physical improvement, which suggested that the negative assumptions about aging aren’t always true.
“There's evidence that people can have resilience and show improvement in later life,” Levy said.
In addition, building on the authors’ previous research, individuals who had taken in more positive age beliefs were more likely to see health improvements.
Levy hopes the findings, published this March in the journal “Geriatrics,” can help people and medical professionals reconsider the aging narrative, so that it “includes the possibility of health improvement.”
She said the findings are important since sources like media and advertising can instill negative age beliefs in a person from a young age.
“I think it's also important that we think about the skills that help us become aware of the negative messages, and then challenge them,” she said.
