This research was supported by funding from the National Institute on Aging.
physical and mental abilities. But a new study from Yale University paints a much more optimistic picture. This study found that many older adults actually improve over time, and that their beliefs about aging may play an important role in those improvements.
Based on more than a decade of data from a large, nationally representative study of older Americans, researchers found that nearly half of adults 65 and older experienced measurable improvements in cognitive function, physical function, or both.
The findings suggest that improvement in later life is much more common than many people realize.
“Many people view aging as an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities,” said Becca R. Levy, lead author of the study and professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH). “What we found is that improvement late in life is not uncommon, but common, and should be included in our understanding of the aging process.”
The study was published in the journal geriatrics.
Aging and improvement
The researchers analyzed data from more than 11,000 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term, federally funded study of older Americans.
To measure changes in mental performance, the researchers used a global cognitive assessment. Physical function was assessed by walking speed. Gait speed is commonly considered by geriatricians to be an important indicator of overall health, as it is closely associated with disability, hospitalization, and mortality.
Participants were followed for 12 years. During that period, 45% showed improvement in at least one of the two areas tested.
Approximately 32% improved cognitively and 28% improved physically. Many participants experienced benefits large enough to be considered clinically meaningful. When the researchers also counted people whose cognitive abilities remained stable rather than declining, more than half of the participants avoided the commonly assumed prediction of cognitive decline.
“What’s surprising is that if you just look at averages, these gains disappear,” says Levy, the book’s author. Breaking the age code: How beliefs about aging determine longevity and health. “Averaging across everyone, we see decline. But when we look at individual trajectories, a very different story emerges. A significant proportion of the older participants we studied improved.”
The role of positive age beliefs
The researchers also investigated why some older people’s symptoms improved while others did not.
They proposed that one possibility was the influence of beliefs about age held at the beginning of the study. Specifically, we investigated whether participants adopted more positive or more negative views about aging.
Their analysis supported that idea. Older adults with more positive beliefs about aging were significantly more likely to have improved both cognitive performance and walking speed. This relationship remained strong even after adjusting for factors such as age, gender, education, chronic disease, depression, and length of follow-up.
This finding is based on Levy’s stereotype embodiment theory. This theory proposes that age-related stereotypes absorbed from society through sources such as social media and advertising can ultimately become personally meaningful and have measurable biological effects.
Previous research led by Levy found that negative thoughts about aging are associated with poorer memory, slower walking speed, increased cardiovascular risk, and biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Levy said the new findings show that the opposite pattern can also occur.
The current study shows that people who absorb more positive age beliefs often show improvement, Levy said.
“Our findings suggest that in many cases there is a reserve capacity for improvement later in life,” she said. “And because beliefs about age are modifiable, this opens the door to interventions at both the individual and societal levels.”
Challenging assumptions about aging
Improvements were not limited to people who began the study with physical or cognitive disabilities.
Researchers found that even participants who started out with normal levels of cognitive and physical function often improved over time. This finding questions the idea that late-life gains simply reflect recovery from illness or a return to previous levels after a setback.
The authors hope their results will help change public perceptions of aging and reduce the belief that continued decline is inevitable. They also suggest that the findings support greater investment in preventive care, rehabilitation programs, and other health-promoting services that help older adults increase their resilience and ability to improve.
Martin Slade, Lecturer in Occupational Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and Department of Environmental Health Sciences at YSPH, is a co-author of the study.
This research was supported by funding from the National Institute on Aging.
