Aug 05, 2022 19:00:00

Elderly people who have been lonely for a long time have faster memory decline

Being lonely is associated with

various health problems, and it has also been pointed out that it may cause cognitive decline . A new study that analyzed data collected from more than 9,000 middle-aged and elderly people showed that ``the older people who have been lonely for a longer period of time have a faster memory loss''.

Cumulative loneliness and subsequent memory function and rate of decline among adults aged ≥50 in the United States, 1996 to 2016 - Yu - Alzheimer's & Dementia - Wiley Online Library
https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.12734

Cumulative loneliness associated with accelerated memory aging in older adults | University of Michigan News
https://news.umich.edu/cumulative-loneliness-associated-with-accelerated-memory-aging-in-older-adults/

A research team led by Lindsay Kobayashi , an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, conducted a Health and Retirement Study (U.S.A. Health and Retirement Study) , we collected data from 9032 adults aged 50 and over.

The research team analyzed the data of interviews on ``whether you were lonely'' five times every other year from 1996 to 2004 and memory tests conducted from 2004 to 2016. 62.51% of the subjects were female and 84.53% were white.

As a result of the analysis, 61.04% of the subjects did not answer that they were lonely even once out of the five interviews, 17.99% answered that they were lonely only once, and answered that they were lonely in two surveys. 9.13% said they were lonely three times or more, and 11.83% said they were lonely.

Below is a line graph of the results of the memory test after dividing the subjects by the number of times they answered that they were lonely. Subjects who did not answer that they were lonely even once are blue, subjects who answered that they were lonely only once are indicated in red, subjects who answered that they were lonely twice are indicated in green, and subjects who answered that they were lonely three or more times are indicated in yellow. It has been. Even as of 2004, when the memory test began, the more times you answered that you were lonely, the lower your memory, and the faster the speed of memory decline after that, the more times you answered that you were lonely.

“We found that longer periods of loneliness lead to faster memory loss,” Kobayashi said. It was suggested that it is not too much,' he claims.

The study's first author, Xuexin Yu, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, also found that the link between loneliness and memory decline was strongest in people over the age of 65, stronger and faster in women than in men. He said he was experiencing memory loss. “Women tend to have larger

social networks than men and may feel less lonely than men, but they can be more vulnerable once they experience long-term loneliness. Stigma and a reluctance to acknowledge loneliness may also contribute to this gender difference.'