Loneliness Not Be As Bad For Dementia Risk As We Thought

Experts think that having a close network of loved ones as we age might protect us from dementia risk.

But a new study has found that while loneliness can impair your memory as you age, that might not translate into full-blown dementia.

Published in Ageing and Mental Health, the research concluded that, “Loneliness is associated with lower initial memory performance in older adults but does not accelerate the decline in memory function over time”.

In this research, scientists looked at data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) programme.

This involved 10,217 individuals over 65. They were asked to self-report their levels of loneliness and were given memory tests over a six-year period.

“Participants with high loneliness at baseline demonstrated significantly lower immediate and delayed recall scores than those with low or average loneliness,” the research reads.

But years into the study, lonelier people didn’t see the memory decline you’d expect with something like dementia. The changes appeared to be more short-term than that.

Lead study author Dr Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria said, “The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome.

“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline.”

Calling the results of previous studies about dementia risk and loneliness “inconsistent,” the study said its results “could reinforce the idea that loneliness cannot necessarily be considered a risk factor for dementia”.

The researchers say that loneliness is a growing problem, affecting anywhere from 14-16% of older adults.

And while their study suggests it might not necessarily be a dementia risk, they add that it “underscores the importance of addressing loneliness as a significant factor in the context of cognitive performance in older adults”.

Though in this study, it didn’t appear to lead to longer-term decline, loneliness still affected the cognitive abilities of older people in the short term.