WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new study has found that people who faced long-term financial difficulties had poorer memory, thinking skills, and brain health later in life.
'Most studies on cognitive aging look at financial hardship at only a single point in time,' study author Jacques Wels said in a news release. 'Our study using several decades of data allows us to see that it is the accumulation of hardship over many years that is linked to the worst cognitive health outcomes, rather than occasional episodes of adversity.'
The study, published in Innovation in Aging, analyzed data from 2,759 people who were part of the 1946 British birth cohort. Researchers followed these participants for more than 70 years through questionnaires, home visits, and clinic assessments conducted by the U.K. Medical Research Council's National Survey of Health and Development.
Researchers looked at participants' household income at ages 26, 43, and 53. People were considered to have persistent low income if they were in the lowest 20% of earners at least twice during those years. About 16% of participants, or around one in six, fell into this group.
The study also measured financial hardship by asking whether participants struggled to live on their income or had trouble paying their bills. Those who reported serious financial difficulties at least twice between ages 36 and 53 were classified as experiencing persistent hardship. This applied to about 12% of participants, or one in eight.
The researchers found that people who had experienced long-term low income or ongoing financial hardship performed worse on cognitive tests by age 53 than those who had not. Among participants who underwent brain scans between ages 69 and 71, those with persistent low income also showed poorer brain health, including greater brain shrinkage. These findings remained even after researchers considered other factors that could affect brain health, such as childhood intelligence, education level, and childhood disadvantage.
The study also found an unexpected result. Although people with long-term financial difficulties scored lower on cognitive tests at age 53, their memory declined more slowly between ages 53 and 69. Researchers believe this may be because they had already experienced more cognitive decline before the age-53 assessment than participants who had not faced long-term financial stress.
'Our findings suggest that supporting people facing financial hardship and reducing chronic poverty could also help prevent cognitive decline and dementia cases in the future,' said senior author Professor Praveetha Patalay.
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