India, April 21 -- Researchers recently explored how loneliness affects memory in older adults.
They studied over 10,000 people aged 65 and above from 12 countries for six years. At the start, participants self-reported whether they felt highly lonely, somewhat lonely, or not lonely. Notably, none of them had memory problems at the beginning.
The study showed that people who felt very lonely had worse memory at the start compared to others. However, their memory did not decline faster over time than that of those who felt less lonely.
To test memory, participants were asked to listen to a list of 10 words and then recall as many as possible right away. Later, after five minutes, during which they were distracted, they were asked to remem...