Nearly half of seniors improve with age, researchers say

A Yale analysis of 12 years of Health and Retirement Study data found 45% of adults 65 and older improved in cognitive or physical function; the study linked improvements to more positive beliefs about aging.

A new analysis of long-term survey data challenges the idea that aging is always a steady decline. Yale researchers used more than a decade of information from the Health and Retirement Study to track people aged 65 and older. They measured cognitive performance with global tests and used walking speed as a marker of physical function. Over a 12-year period, a substantial share of participants showed gains in cognition, physical function, or both. The researchers reported that participants' beliefs about aging were linked to those improvements. Key findings: - About 45% of participants improved either cognitively or physically over 12 years. - Roughly 32% showed cognitive gains and about 28% showed physical improvement in walking speed. - Positive age beliefs were associated with higher likelihood of improvement, even after accounting for age, sex, education, chronic disease, depression and follow-up length. - Improvements occurred both among those recovering from decline and among participants who began with normal function. - The study did not examine cellular changes in muscle or brain, and the authors noted limited representation of some ethnic minority groups. Summary: The authors say the findings counter the view that continuous decline is inevitable and point to possible psychological, behavioral and physiological pathways linking age beliefs to health. They noted study limitations and recommended further research on muscle and brain changes, other cognitive domains such as spatial memory, and additional cohorts with greater minority representation.