Those who have a good outlook on aging are more likely to regain their memory.

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According to a Yale School of Public Health study, older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a common form of memory loss, had a 30% higher chance of regaining normal cognition if they had internalized positive cultural views about aging as opposed to negative ones.

Additionally, compared to people who held negative aging views, those who had optimistic attitudes were able to regain their cognitive abilities up to two years sooner. Regardless of the severity of the initial MCI, this cognitive recovery benefit was observed.

“Most people believe that MCI patients never recover, but in reality, half of them do. The reasons why some people recover while others do not are not well understood. Therefore, we examined positive age beliefs to see if they could offer a solution,” stated Becca Levy, the study’s lead author and a professor of psychology and public health.

Since positive age beliefs have been shown to improve cognitive performance, boost self-confidence regarding cognition, and lessen stress from cognitive challenges in her earlier experimental studies with older adults, Levy hypothesized that they may be crucial to cognitive recovery.

The new study is the first to show evidence that favorable age beliefs, a cultural element, have a role in MCI recovery. The research article was published in JAMA Network Open. The study’s co-author is Yale internal medicine lecturer and biostatistician Martin Slade.

Regardless of their initial age and physical condition, older participants in the positive age-belief group who began the trial with normal cognition had a lower chance of developing MCI over the following 12 years than those in the negative age-belief group.

This work was financed by the National Institute on Aging. It included 1,716 people who were 65 years of age or older and were selected from the nationwide longitudinal Health and Retirement Study.

According to Levy, “age-belief interventions at the individual and societal levels could increase the number of people who experience cognitive recovery because our previous research has demonstrated that age beliefs can be modified.”