Dr Miriam Stoppard shares research out of Surrey University into how people see their own ageing, and how upbeat, confident carers can enhance someone’s quality of life
Honestly, this makes me smile. If you’re young at heart, satisfied with life and self-confident, the person you’re looking after will feel younger and better too.
“Felt age” is defined as how old someone feels compared to their real age. It’s measured by asking people whether they feel younger, the same, or older than their actual age.
This concept helps understand how people see their own ageing, which can affect their mental and physical health and predict important health outcomes, including mortality. It would seem the interconnectedness of felt age between people with dementia and their partner caregivers is crucial. In fact researchers at Surrey University claim a caregiver who is feeling young influences the wellbeing of people with dementia.
And Dr Serena Sabatini, a lecturer in Psychology there, has a point. She says this “underscores the need for interventions and policies that support both caregivers and care recipients, fostering healthier ageing experiences and enhancing the quality of life within these caregiving relationships.”
The Surrey researchers examined data from the British IDEAL dementia study carried out between 2014 and 2016 including 1,001 pairs of people living with dementia and their spouses. Participants’ ages ranged from 41 to 95 years.
The majority of people with dementia were men, whereas the majority of spousal carers were women. The research team measured how old each person felt and assessed their relationship quality, wellbeing, life satisfaction, and self-confidence.
They analysed the connection between the felt ages of the people with dementia and their spouses. They also used a special method to understand how one person’s feelings and behaviours are related to other feelings in their partner – and to discover whether the quality of their relationship influenced this connection. And also to see if a person’s felt age was related to their partner’s mental and emotional health.
This scientific approach allowed the team to understand how the feelings and perceptions of ageing are shared and may influence each other within these caregiving relationships. As anyone who has cared for someone with dementia knows, the quality of the caregiving relationship plays a significant role.
The better the relationship the closer a felt age is to that of the person with dementia.
This suggests the caregiver and person with dementia perceive their ageing more similarly when they have a close relationship. Dr Sabatini adds: “By fostering positive interactions and mutual understanding, we can potentially improve the mental and emotional health of both the caregivers and those with dementia.”
That’s reassuring to know.
