GoKawiilNeuroscientists know that there is a link between loneliness and cognitive decline in older adults, although it is still difficult to understand the exact magnitude of the link. A new longitudinal study provides evidence that a proportion of people who feel lonely end up having more memory impairment, though this doesn’t necessarily mean that their brains age faster.
The report, published in Aging & Mental Health, shows that older adults with higher levels of loneliness scored lower on tests of immediate and delayed recall. Even so, the rate at which their memory declined over six years was virtually identical to those who were not lonely.
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” said Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Universidad del Rosario, who led the research. “The study underscores the importance of addressing loneliness as a significant factor in the context of cognitive performance in older adults.”
Six-year study of thousands of single people
The team analyzed data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), one of the most robust longitudinal databases for studying aging. For six years, the researchers followed 10,217 adults, aged 65 to 94, from 12 European countries. They assessed their level of loneliness and their performance on memory tests.