A Yale University study published in the journal Geriatrics reported that 45% of older adult participants improved in at least one of two examined areas: cognitive and physical function. The study found that older adults with more positive beliefs about aging were more likely to improve in both cognitive performance and walking speed.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 11,000 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, a federally funded long-term survey of older Americans. Participants were followed for up to 12 years. During this period, approximately 32% of participants improved cognitively, and 28% showed physical improvement. More than half of participants avoided cognitive deterioration when those with stable cognitive abilities were included.

The study measured changes in mental abilities using a global cognitive assessment and evaluated physical function through walking speed. The relationship between positive age beliefs and improvement remained after adjusting for factors including age, sex, education, chronic disease, depression, and length of follow-up. Participants who started with normal levels of cognitive and physical function frequently improved over time. The National Institute on Aging provided funding for the research.

Becca R. Levy, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, served as the lead author. Martin Slade, a lecturer in occupational medicine at Yale School of Medicine and in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, co-authored the study. "Many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities," Levy said. "A meaningful percentage of the older participants that we studied got better."

"What we found is that improvement in later life is not rare, it is common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process," she said. "What is striking is that these gains disappear when you only look at averages. If you average everyone together, you see decline. But when you look at individual trajectories, you uncover a very different story."