Instead of steadily declining, as often portrayed in the media, many older individuals can and do improve over time, and their mindset toward aging plays a major part in their success, a recent study suggests. Analyzing more than a decade of data from a large, nationally representative study of older Americans, lead author Becca R. Levy, PhD, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, found that nearly half of adults aged 65 and older showed measurable improvement in cognitive function, physical function, or both, over time.

The improvements were not limited to a small group of exceptional individuals and, notably, were linked to an often overlooked factor: how people think about aging itself. “Many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities,” said Levy. “What we found is that improvement in later life is not rare, it’s common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process.”

For the study, the researchers followed more than 11,000 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, tracking changes in cognition using a global performance assessment, and physical function using walking speed — often described by geriatricians as a “vital sign” because of its strong links to disability, hospitalization, and mortality.

Over a follow-up period of up to 12 years, 45% of participants improved in at least one of the two domains. About 32% improved cognitively, 28% improved physically, and many experienced gains that exceeded thresholds considered clinically meaningful. When participants whose cognitive scores remained stable over that period (rather than declining) were included, more than half defied the stereotype of inevitable deterioration in cognition.

The authors also examined potential reasons for why some people improve and some do not. They found that those with more positive age beliefs were significantly more likely to show improvements in both cognition and walking speed, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, education, chronic disease, depression, and length of follow-up.

“Our findings suggest there is often a reserve capacity for improvement in later life,” she said. “And because age beliefs are modifiable, this opens the door to interventions at both the individual and societal level.”

To download the full article, published in Geriatrics, click here