Study: Elders today are in significantly better shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

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Old­er peo­ple have become younger: phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive func­tion have improved mean­ing­ful­ly in 30 years (Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä release):

The func­tion­al abil­i­ty of old­er peo­ple is nowa­days bet­ter when it is com­pared to that of peo­ple at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study con­duct­ed at the Fac­ul­ty of Sport and Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä, Fin­land. The study com­pared the phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance of peo­ple nowa­days between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged peo­ple in the 1990s.

“High­er phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and increased body size explained the bet­ter walk­ing speed and mus­cle strength among the lat­er-born cohort,” says doc­tor­al stu­dent Kaisa Koivunen, “where­as the most impor­tant under­ly­ing fac­tor behind the cohort dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive per­for­mance was longer education.”

Post­doc­tor­al researcher Mat­ti Munuk­ka con­tin­ues: “The cohort of 75- and 80-year-olds born lat­er has grown up and lived in a dif­fer­ent world than did their coun­ter­parts born three decades ago. There have been many favourable changes. These include bet­ter nutri­tion and hygiene, improve­ments in health care and the school sys­tem, bet­ter acces­si­bil­i­ty to edu­ca­tion and improved work­ing life.”

The Study:

Birth cohort dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in 75- and 80-year-olds: a com­par­i­son of two cohorts over 28 years (Aging Clin­i­cal and Exper­i­men­tal Research). From the abstract:

  • Objec­tive: To eval­u­ate cohort dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in old­er men and women born and assessed 28 years apart.
  • Meth­ods: Data in this study were drawn from two age-homo­ge­neous cohorts mea­sured in the same lab­o­ra­to­ry using the same stan­dard­ized cog­ni­tive per­for­mance tests. Par­tic­i­pants in the first cohort were born in 1910 and 1914 and assessed in 1989–1990 (Ever­green project, n=500). Par­tic­i­pants in the sec­ond cohort were born in 1938 or 1939 and 1942 or 1943 and assessed in 2017–2018 (Ever­green II, n=726). Par­tic­i­pants in both cohorts were assessed at age 75 and 80 years and were recruit­ed from the pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter. Cog­ni­tive per­for­mance was mea­sured using the Dig­it Span test from the Wech­sler Mem­o­ry Scale (WMS), Dig­it Sym­bol test from the Wech­sler Adult Intel­li­gence Scale (WAIS) and phone­mic Ver­bal Flu­en­cy test from the Schaie-Thur­stone Adult Men­tal Abil­i­ties Test. Reac­tion time assess­ing motor and men­tal respons­es was mea­sured with a sim­ple fin­ger move­ment task, fol­lowed by a com­plex fin­ger move­ment task. T‑tests were used to study cohort dif­fer­ences and lin­ear regres­sion mod­els to study pos­si­ble fac­tors under­ly­ing differences.
  • Results: We found sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant cohort dif­fer­ences in all the cog­ni­tive per­for­mance tests, except for the dig­it span test and sim­ple move­ment task in men, the lat­er-born cohort per­form­ing bet­ter in all the mea­sured outcomes.
  • Con­clu­sions: The results of this study pro­vide strong evi­dence that cog­ni­tive per­for­mance is bet­ter in more recent cohorts of old­er peo­ple com­pared to their coun­ter­parts mea­sured 28 years ear­li­er. (Edi­tor’s Note: The cog­ni­tive per­for­mance mea­sures used under­lie traits such as mem­o­ry, atten­tion, pro­cess­ing speed and prob­lem solving.)

The Study in Context: