April 1, 2024 • 35 mins
Age is the main risk factor for cognitive decline. So with more people around the world living longer, cases of dementia are set to rise. There's currently no cure - but research suggests that happiness can reduce the impact of this awful illness.
Psychologist Emily Willroth helped write a chapter on this topic for the 2024 World Happiness Report - and explains how making friends, helping others and engaging in fun physical activities can slow cognitive decline, even when the disease has taken hold.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This year, Finland has yet again been crowned the planet's
happiest nation by the World Happiness Report. Country rankings like
these are usually the only thing people hear about when
it comes to this annual report, but here on the
Happiness Lab we like to go a bit deeper into
the well being science, and so in the next episodes
we'll be diving into what the report says about other
pressing wellbeing issues.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Last time, we spoke to.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
John Helliwell, who's been working on the World Happiness Report
since its inception. He explained that this year's report focused
not just on overall differences and happiness across nations, but
also on how happiness differs across age within a single country.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So we split the population into those born before nineteen
sixty five boomers and their predecessors, those born after nineteen
eighty more than the millennials and Gen SAID, and then
the intervening group of Gen X.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
In Eastern Europe, the young are markedly more happy than
their parents and grandparents, but in the US it's Gen
Z who's having a rough time. I wanted to look
more deeply at these demographic quirks around the world, so
I tagged in the lead author of a different groundbreaking
chapter in this year's World Happiness Report.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
My name is Emily Wilroth. I am an assistant professor
at Washington University in Saint Louis and the Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Emily studies well being across the lifespan, and specifically what
it takes to maintain happiness as we age. Her chapter
looks for the first time at the intersection of long
life happiness and dementia. As life expectancy extends around the world,
more and more of us will experience the sort of
cognitive decline that often accompanies old age. Emily's research has
(01:58):
found that happier practices can not only delay the effects
of dementia, but can also let us live better lives
as the disease develops. It's a fascinating and timely topic,
and honestly that I hadn't really considered very much before
I read Emily's chapter, So I started by asking her
why do we so rarely talk about the happiness challenges
of aging.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I think, on the one hand, we all want to
know how we can live our best lives for our
whole life, So what we can do to age healthfully
and happily. But oftentimes I think that we don't focus
as much on older adulthood. And I think it's particularly
important to understand how we can promote well being in
older adults, and that means both leveraging their age related strengths,
(02:40):
the things that we gain as we age, but then
also what kinds of supports and resources we can provide
to help people navigate age related challenges. And I think
this is becoming increasingly important as our global population ages.
So now in most countries around the world, the average
person can expect to live into older adulthood, and the
(03:01):
World Health Organization estimates that by the year twenty fifty,
the number of older adults over the age of sixty
five is expected to double worldwide. So it's going to
become even more important for more people for us to
understand what it means to age happily.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And so when we think of some of the happiness
challenges that older adults face, you know, what are some
of the things that come to mind for a researcher
like you that studies this population.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So, on the one hand, aging comes with a lot
of age related strengths. We know that a lot of
wisdom comes with age. There's some research to suggest that
older adults may even be better at regulating their emotions
and might experience more positive emotions as a result. So,
on the one hand, we know that there might be
some wellbeing benefits of aging and in older adulthood, but
(03:48):
there are also a lot of age related challenges that
people need to navigate that can impact their well being. So,
for example, many older adults will experience changes to their
physical and cognitive health that impact their ability to participate
in activities that are particularly meaningful to them. Many older
adults will also experience more losses in terms of loss
(04:10):
of loved ones, whether that's parents, spouse, friends, And then
we also know that there can be a lot of
social changes in older adulthood. Your role and your relationship
with your children or grandchildren may change. Retirement can be
really positive for many people, that it can also be
a major life change that is challenging for others. So
(04:33):
navigating this time where our health is changing, our social
roles are changing, all of that can be challenging. But also,
thankfully we have these age related strengths that are present
there too that can be drawn upon to help people
age happily.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And so one of the things that can really challenge
our ability to age happily is when older adulthood winds
up becoming synonymous with dementia. And so talk a little
bit about the prevalence of dementia and why this is
something that well being researchers really need to focus on.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Even more so, dementia's very common in older adulthood. Dementia's
a clinic goal syndrome that's characterized by progressive memory and
thinking impairments, and it impacts approximately one in ten older
adults over the age of sixty five, and actually one
in three older adults over the age of eighty five.
And so what that means is as people live longer,
(05:26):
because age is the largest risk factor for dementia, we
can expect more dementia cases. For example, by the year
twenty fifty, the World Health Organization estimates that there will
be one hundred and thirty nine million people living with
dementia worldwide. And dementia can really impact quality of life
by reducing their sense of autonomy, by making it more
(05:48):
difficult for them to engage socially with loved ones. And
sometimes there's experiences of shame or embarrassment, particularly in the
early stages when one starts noticing their new changes in
memory and thinking, and dementia can also impact quality of
life for care partners and loved ones of people living
with dementia. It can be a distressing experience to see
(06:11):
these memory and thinking changes in those that you love,
and particularly in the later stages of dementia, it often
requires a lot of caregiving, which poses sometimes a challenge
for the care partners of people living with dementia. At
the same time, I also want to make the point
that it is possible to live well with dementia. I
(06:32):
think that it's really common to take a sort of
deficit focused medical model view of dementia where we only
look at the challenges and negative experiences, and those are
very real, so I don't want to discount those, but
if we only look at that side sometimes I think
it can prevent us from seeing people living with dementia
(06:52):
as whole people.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So many of our listeners will probably know someone with
dementia or kind of have heard about it. But can
you unpack for some of the happiness challenges that individuals
with dementia face, like in their kind.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Of day to day life because of this disease.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So I think we can think of the sort of
psychological needs of people living with dementia the same way
that we think about everybody's psychological needs and what we
all need to feel happy in life. Everyone wants to
feel that their life has meaning and purpose, that they
can set goals, that they can navigate their day to
(07:28):
day life and engage in the activities that are meaningful
to them, and that they can connect with others. And
the memory and thinking impairments that come with dementia can
pose challenges to all of those aspects of life. So
on the one hand, we know that it's really important
for people to experience a sense of autonomy, that we
can care for ourselves, that we can direct our own lives,
(07:50):
and the memory and thinking impairments that come with dementia
can pose a challenge for autonomy if the individual is
no longer able to engage in some of the sort
of typical activities of daily living that they've done in
the past and now require assistance or care to do
those daily activities that can impact quality of life. Another
(08:10):
important psychological need is our need to connect with others
socially that can be impacted. In people living with dementia,
it can be sometimes more difficult to follow a conversation,
it can sometimes pose challenges and close relationships as those
relationships and the nature of them begins to change, and
so thinking about that, it's really important to create support
(08:34):
systems and strategies that provide opportunities for people living with
dementia to engage first of all with their loved ones
and maintain those existing social relationships, but also group activities
with other people living with dementia and experiencing memory and
thinking impairments. So sort of group support systems can be
really helpful. And then there's also some really interesting research
(08:58):
on intergenerational relationships and some of the positive well being boosting,
happiness boosting effects of connecting older adults living with dementia
with youngers and having that intergenerational social support system as well.
But unfortunately, there's currently no cure for dementia. We're just
starting to see some biomedical treatments that might slow cognitive
(09:21):
decline in individuals with dementia, but there is no treatment
that is going to stop the progression of dementia or
alleviate the existing symptoms of dementia and for that reason,
we've really started also focusing on strategies to prevent dementia,
and as a psychologist and a well being researcher, that's
really where my side of the science comes in. We
(09:44):
know that the way that people live their lives, lifestyle
and psychological factors can have a major influence on who's
likely to go on to develop dementia. So, for example,
a growing body of research suggests that people with higher
levels of wellbeing are actually less likely to develop dementia.
These studies have assessed wellbeing earlier in the lifespan, so
(10:06):
in midlife, our early older adulthood, and then followed people
across time for years or in many cases decades to
see who goes on to develop cognitive decline and dementia.
And what these studies have found is that people with
higher levels of wellbeing at the beginning of the study
period are the ones who are least likely to develop
dementia by the end of the study. And there's several
(10:28):
different potential reasons or explanations for this relationship. On the
one hand, we know that people with higher well being
engage in a lot of health protective behaviors that are
important for maintaining cognitive and brain health and older adulthood.
For example, people with higher wellbeing are more likely to
engage in physical exercise, they're less likely to smoke, and
(10:48):
they're likely to have supportive social relationships that can be
really protective across the lifespan. We also know that wellbeing
can serve as sort of stress buffering effect or a
shield that can protect our bodily systems from the harmful
effects of stress. Stress is just a part of life.
Everyone experiences stress, but when that stress is chronic or
(11:09):
severe or particularly uncontrollable, it can harm a lot of
our bodily systems, such as our immune functioning, our cardiovascular functioning,
our neuroendocrine system and all of those different bodily systems
are important for our risk for developing dementia, and what
research suggests is that people with higher levels of wellbeing,
(11:30):
they're less likely to be exposed to the same severe,
chronic stressors, and when they are exposed to those stressors,
they often show a more adaptive or protected physiological response,
suggesting that wellbeing might be a buffer that can sort
of stand in the way of those harmful effects that
stress typically has on the body and in turn for dementia.
(11:52):
That means that it may protect the brain and cognition
and reduce the likelihood that an individual experiencing stress will
go on to develop dementia.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's such a win win, right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's like, when we think about the kinds of things
we need to do to prevent some of these diseases
of later in life.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Some of these things I feel honestly like a bummer. Right.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
You know, we have to change how we eat or
eat much more healthy or whatever. But this is one
where it's like, no, No, What you do is you
focus on all the things that make you happier in
mid life and early in life, and that's going to
have this protective effect. It's like, it's something that we
all want to be doing anyway, but it also is
going to have this effect that we also don't think.
Was this kind of shocking to researchers when they first
started noticing this sort of connection between well being earlier
(12:33):
in life and reduced dementia later.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, And first of all, I just want to echo
your point. I think one of the reasons that it's
so exciting to think about well being as a potential
protective factor is because many of the other things that
we know impact dementia risk, such as diet and nutrition,
physical activity, quitting, smoking control, and cardiovascular risk factors. Those
(12:56):
things are really hard. We know that behavior change is hard.
Some of those, like the cardiovascular risk factors, require medical interventions,
which can be difficult to access, expensive, or have their
own limitations. But improving well being is something that, hopefully
for most people, is intrinsically valuable and intrinsically a positive experience.
(13:20):
So I think that there's a long tradition in the
science of wellbeing of thinking about the connection between well
being and mental health broadly and physical health. So on
the one hand, drawing from this longstanding science of well
being and seeing that more positive psychological factors, greater happiness
(13:41):
is associated with better physical health, it's not necessarily surprising
that we would see the same thing when it comes
to our cognitive health and dementia. But I do think
there are some findings that we're surprising to me at
least personally, and very exciting. So, for example, my lab
did a study looking at the relationship between well being
(14:02):
cognitive functions to sort of our memory and thinking skills
that are typically affected by dementia and then the actual
disease processes that cause dementia, so the neuropathology present in
people's brains. And what we found is that well being
was not necessarily related to the amount of disease pathology present,
but what it was related to was people's ability to
(14:26):
maintain those memory and thinking skills across time, even in
the presence of that dementia causing pathology. So what that
finding suggests is that well being might actually help us
to maintain our memory and thinking even when the disease
is already present in our brains. And to me, that
(14:46):
was surprising but also really exciting because it suggests that
there's these multiple pathways that scientists and medical professionals and
individuals can pursue to reduce the likelihood of dementia, both
strategies to prevent the accumulation of those disease processes, but
also alongside that strategy is like improving well that might
(15:09):
help us to be able to live well and tolerate
a certain level of neuropathology.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there definitely are things we can do to help
ward off the impact of dementia, and we'll hear about
more strategies we can use to build up our cognitive
resilience as we age when the happiness lab returns in
a moment. When we think about how to avoid disease,
we tend to think of factors that improve our physical health,
(15:39):
things like access to medicine and clean water, maybe stuff
like nutritious foods or sanitary practices. We tend not to
think of the impact of stuff like hanging out with
a friend, or taking an educational course or looking at
a painting. But Emily Wilwroth and her colleagues have learned
that one of the cruelest health challenges of our era, dementia,
can be tackled in some unexpected ways.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
When we're thinking about strategies to prevent dementia, some of
the things that we have the most control over. We
can think about engaging in social activities and fostering our
social relationships. That can be one of the strongest psychosocial
preventative factors. And we also know that social relationships and
social activity are really good for our well being. We
(16:23):
also know that physical activity and sleep are really important.
There's also various factors when we're looking into later life
that people can do to lower their risk for dementia,
and most of those are related to controlling cardiovascular risk factors, so,
for example, maintaining healthy blood pressure levels, treating diabetes if
(16:44):
it's present, quitting or not starting smoking, or excessive alcohol consumption,
all of these sort of typical health behaviors we know
play a really big role in reducing one's likelihood of
developing dementia. And more broadly, when we look at strategies
to promote well being and happiness, there's quite a few
(17:04):
strategies that the scientific literature has begun to suggest might
be effective. But I think it's really important for people
to also pay attention to their own feelings and how
they respond to these different strategies and sort of notice
what works well for them. So, for example, there's some
research to suggest that engaging in gratitude practices or mindfulness,
(17:27):
social activity, getting out in nature, moving one's body, all
of these things there's some evidence to suggest that they
can promote happiness and well being, but that doesn't mean
that they promote happiness and well being for everybody the
same way. And one thing that is nice about trying
to improve one's well being is that we are really
(17:47):
the best judges of what's working well for us. Because
we're the best judges of our own wellbeing and happiness.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
You know, so many of these happiness interventions are things
that we can do at any age. But I'm thinking
of my listeners who might be in their twenties and
their thirties and forties. You know, if you had to pick,
you know, one type of intervention that might be good
at different age ranges, what would you suggest to listeners.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
So in early life, thinking of teens and twenties, I
think staying engaged in education can be really protective. When
thinking more about midlife and thirties and forties, I'm not
gonna pick one, I'm gonna pick two. I'm going to
say one. We know that social activity is so important,
and one thing that I think is really helpful to
(18:33):
know about that is a lot of research suggests that
it is the quality of social interactions and social relationships,
not the quantity that matters. So it doesn't mean that
everyone needs to be extroverted and go out to parties
and have a million friends, but instead really just nurturing
those social relationships that you do have and spending time
with close loved ones. The other that I would say
(18:56):
for midlife is engaging in physical activity. This is so
important for our mental health as well as our physical
and cognitive health, and midlife is a really important time
to sort of be prevention focused when thinking about cardiovascular
health and ultimately cognitive health. So either maintaining or starting
a physical activity routine that is one that you feel
(19:19):
like you can maintain across the lifespan. So for some
people that might look like typical exercise going to the gym,
but for other people that might look like a daily
walk or getting out in nature or playing pickleball with friends.
So finding something that brings you joy, that gets your
body moving in mid life I think is really important.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
You mentioned in your twenties you really want to focus
on education. Why is education so important? This is often
not necessarily something I would think would matter for happiness
or sort of dementia prevention, But what does education help
us do psychologically?
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, So we see a really strong protective effect on
high quality education in lowering the likelihood of cognitive decline
in dementia in late life. And there's several reasons why
that might be. We know, for example, that cognitive activity
is really important for cognitive and brain health, and so
(20:13):
early life education might set the foundation for that, and
it also may simply be so many people have dementia
related neuropathology the disease processes that cause dementia, without necessarily
experiencing the clinical syndrome of dementia. And one reason for
that might be that if we are consistently engaged in
(20:38):
cognitive activities, we are sort of able to maintain those
memory and thinking impairments even in the presence of that pathology.
We call that cognitive resilience, and research suggests that education,
and in particular high quality education is one of the
biggest factors associated with cognitive resilience. So for many people
(21:02):
it's going to be inevitable at least now, with where
our biomedical treatments are, that demention related neuropathology you will accumulate.
But education is one of the things that we can
sort of arm ourselves with or protect ourselves with that
will allow our memory and thinking abilities to continue and
to maintain those cognitive functions in the presence of this
(21:23):
disease process.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And so as we think about these tools and strategies
we should begin engaging in, there's also this question of
when we need to start them. What do we know
about the kind of early history of some of these
preventative measures sort of dealing with dementia down the line.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
That's a great question. On the one hand, you can
imagine that maintaining and increasing well being as early as
possible and then maintaining it across the lifespan might be
the most protective. Right, there's probably no better time to
start increasing well being than the present and then maintaining
that across time. And given the mechanisms that we think
are at play with the link between well being and dementia,
(22:01):
I think that approach makes a lot of conceptual sense.
Health behaviors and their impact on health is cumulative, the
harmful of stress on our bodies that wellbeing might buffer
our cumulative So from that perspective, starting early and maintaining
well being across the lifespan might be the most beneficial.
But then on the other hand, when thinking of going
(22:21):
to implement these wellbeing interventions to improve cognitive outcomes and
reduce dementia risk for the greatest number of people, I
think that's still an open scientific question whether we should
be intervening in midlife or more proximal to when we
start to see cognitive change and the mint related neuropathology accumulate,
(22:41):
such as an early older adulthood. So I think that's
still an open scientific question that we as researchers need
to dig into more. But in terms of the general public,
I think that a strategy of increasing your wellbeing and
putting your mental health first, no matter where you are
and the lifespan, is likely to be effective.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And so so far we've been talking about ways that
we can engage our well being to prevent dementia. Later on,
you know, what do we know about what we can
do to use well being practices to improve dementia, kind
of once the disease has already started, Because I think
sometimes when people get these diagnoses, or you know, family
members or caretakers hear this, it's like this kind of
game over idea.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I think it's really common for us to take a
deficit focused approach to thinking about dementia, thinking about the
things that are lost, both at the individual level. It
can be scary for an individual to get a diagnosis
of a dementia or for a loved one to get
a diagnosis of dementia, and so it's really easy to
focus only on the challenges without also thinking about all
(23:47):
of the opportunities that that individual still has to experience
a meaningful, purposeful, joyful life. And we're also guilty of
doing this from the sort of medical system care standpoint.
So oftentimes in memory care facilities, it'll be common to
focus on unwanted behavior or distress and reducing those without
(24:12):
thinking about strategies to increase joy or happiness or purpose
or well being among individuals living with dementia. But increasingly
there is greater awareness that it is possible to live
well with dementia, and there are several strategies that can
increase the likelihood that if someone with dementia continues to
(24:32):
experience high levels of well being. So first we can
think about the environment that the individual is living in.
There's some research to suggest that older adults in general
and individuals living with dementia prefer to do what's called
aging in place, or remaining at home as long as possible,
in a comfortable, familiar environment where they're able to maintain
(24:55):
some of their typical day to day routines and some
autonomy or agency over their day to day life. Sometimes
this isn't always possible or safe for an individual to
continue to live at home right now, the traditional, most
typical model of care would be for that individual to
move into a nursing home type facility or a memory
(25:17):
care facility, and there we can think about different strategies
to make that environment as familiar and homelike and as
comfortable as possible, so rather than feeling like a hospital,
feeling more like a home. And then several countries around
the world are trying new, more innovative care models. For example,
(25:39):
there's a model called dementia villages, where individuals living with
dementia live in homelike atmospheres and apartments within a community
that has grocery stores and libraries and some of the
typical things that you would expect a community or a
neighborhood to have, but within one safe community of other
(26:02):
individuals living with dementia, as well as care partners and caregivers.
We can also think more the individual level about different
interventions or strategies that can be beneficial for well being. So,
for example, there's some research to suggest that cultural arts
interventions are really effective at increasing the wellbeing of people
(26:23):
living with dementia, and this can involve creative endeavors like
creating art, drawing, and painting, dancing and movement therapy has
been shown to be effective, but it can also be
about experiencing art and culture, whether that is viewing visual art,
listening to music, seeing theater productions. All of these different
(26:46):
ways of engaging with arts and culture can be helpful
for helping individuals living with dementia continue to experience the
same joys of life that all of us appreciate, as
well as reminiscence therapies, which are opportunities for individuals living
with dementia to recall meaningful memories and tell those through
different storytelling means. Intergenerational intervaval engines that bring together older
(27:10):
adults living with dementia with younger generations, and that opportunity
to connect across generations can be really protective for well being.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
You mentioned one of these activities that I really love,
this idea of reminiscing activities or life story books.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
What's a life story book?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And how could a family member who wanted to do
this with one of their loved ones who was experiencing dementia.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
How could they engage with something like this?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
So it can often be helpful to use physical cues,
so things like photo albums or familiar objects to help
remind people of memories that are personally meaningful to them.
You can also ask about you know, if you're thinking
about your family member living with dementia, you can ask
them to tell you stories maybe that you haven't even
(27:56):
heard before, and it can be really beneficial for a
lot of reasons. It gives the individual living with dementia
the opportunity to reflect back and sort of preserve some
of these memory worries, and to connect socially with the
person that they're telling these stories too, and thinking about
sort of the well being of the loved ones. It
(28:18):
can be also really helpful to document and record these stories,
whether that's to write them down to record them digitally.
All of these different strategies can help preserve the personhood
of the person with dementia and also provide these really
valuable keepsakes and memories and stories for their loved ones.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Another thing you talked about in the report is the
possibility that we can start using technology better to help
with dementia and sort of to help individuals with dementia
live better lives. How can technology help us here?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
First, we can think of assistive technologies, so things that
can help individuals remain safe while also maintaining their autonomy. So,
for example, GPS has been used as well as object
locators to help an individual who may be spending time
alone to be able to find important objects in their house,
(29:12):
whether that is telephone for example. Technological devices that can
help with things like administering medication and remembering to take
one's medication can be really helpful and important. But in
addition to these more assistive technologies, we can also think
of technology enabled interventions. So, for example, there's some research
(29:33):
to suggest that robotic pets can actually serve as a
really important well being intervention for older adults living with
dementia to be able to engage in sort of care
practices with a robotic cat or dog, for example. So
we can think of technologies both in how they can
help keep people safe while allowing them to maintain independence
(29:58):
and autonomy, but we can also think of them as
ways to intervene and enhance quality of life and the
opportunities to engage in meaningful activities.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I think of this so much, you know, after the
COVID nineteen pandemic, right when you know, I remember that
time towards the end of twenty twenty, when at least
to contact my older relatives, you know, who are maybe
more vulnerable from disease and so on. You know, I
wasn't able to do that in person, and you know,
before good technologies to connect, that would mean I wouldn't
have any social connection with them. But then with these
(30:29):
technologies you could actually see each other in video conference
and chat. And I think that that allows for so
much more intergenerational contact, which can be so critical for
social connection, especially as we live further away from our
relatives and so on. Is this the kind of thing
that you think that technology can be used better for
in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Absolutely, so.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I think technology we've all seen over the past few
years how technology can help us connect, whether that means
connecting with our loved ones, whether that means meeting new people,
or just increasing sort of the frequency of social contact.
And we know that social contact is so important for
health and happiness. I think that we still have a
(31:09):
lot to learn about what types of technology enabled communications
are best and for whom right so, whether that be
video chat or telephone communications, but anything that can connect
us more often with the people that we love is
likely to be beneficial for health. And happiness, including an
(31:29):
individuals living with dementia.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So as we think about all these strategies that we
can use to maybe prevent dementia and also help individuals
with dementia live their best lives. Do you have any
recommendations for people in midlife who are trying to reduce
their stress and focus on their happiness, but are dealing
with these age related changes and people that they love.
You know, are there ways that we can kind of
protect our stress or best practices for kind of handling
a dementia diagnosis in an older loved one.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
It can be really challenging when someone that we love
is diagnosed with dementia, and if we are a care
partner providing care for an individual living with dementia that
can also come with its own unique challenges. It can
be emotional distressing to see these changes in our loved ones.
And although there can be purpose and joy found in caregiving,
(32:16):
we also sometimes can see caregiver burnout or stress among
care partners, and so I think it's really important to
lean back on your own social support network, whether that
is other loved ones that you can spend time with
or that can help with the caregiving aspects, or whether
(32:37):
that's connecting with new people who have shared a similar
life experience for that sort of social support and perspective
from someone else who has been in your shoes. No
matter what age we are and no matter what difficult
life experiences we're going through, putting our happiness and placing
some importance on that and taking time to prioritize our
(32:59):
self and our well being to be able to manage
the stressors that we're experiencing is really important, and so
just empowering yourself to be able to sometimes think about
what's going to impact your own wellbeing and happiness and
engaging in the activities and self care practices that help
you to maintain your own mental health.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
I think that's so important because I think we can
get so caught up in what we can do to
help our older relatives that we sometimes put ourselves under stress,
which isn't great for our happiness and our cardiovascular health
in those kinds of things too.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Has engaging this.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Research made you a little bit more hopeful about your
own cognitive resilience. I'm curious how you've changed your behaviors
and your mindsets of knowing more about this research.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
I think that it's a really helpful reminder to put
my social relationships first, to put opportunities to move my
body first, and to really incorporate that into my daily life.
Even as someone who researches this stuff, it's really easy
to get caught up in day to day routines and
stressors and deadlines and things like that, and so it
(34:05):
is a nice reminder doing this research that putting my
well being first is an investment into my future and
into the future of.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
My loved ones.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I know many of you listen to this show because
you want to enhance your daily lives right now. But
it turns out that following the advice we share on
this podcast, practices like making friends or being kind to
others can help you build resilience to a disease that
could strike many, many decades from now. I find that amazing,
and it's certainly something I'd never thought about before reading
Emily's chapter in the World Happiness Report. But we're not
(34:38):
through with the report's insights just yet. In our next episode,
we'll turn to a different chapter from the report, one
that focuses on the other end of the age spectrum.
We'll tackle the happiness challenges facing the young, and we'll
try to figure out why children and teens in some
countries are really struggling and what we can do to
fix this sad trend. That's next time on the Happiness
Lab with me, doctor Laurie Santos,
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This year, Finland has yet again been crowned the planet's
happiest nation by the World Happiness Report. Country rankings like
these are usually the only thing people hear about when
it comes to this annual report, but here on the
Happiness Lab we like to go a bit deeper into
the well being science, and so in the next episodes
we'll be diving into what the report says about other
pressing wellbeing issues.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Last time, we spoke to.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
John Helliwell, who's been working on the World Happiness Report
since its inception. He explained that this year's report focused
not just on overall differences and happiness across nations, but
also on how happiness differs across age within a single country.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So we split the population into those born before nineteen
sixty five boomers and their predecessors, those born after nineteen
eighty more than the millennials and Gen SAID, and then
the intervening group of Gen X.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
In Eastern Europe, the young are markedly more happy than
their parents and grandparents, but in the US it's Gen
Z who's having a rough time. I wanted to look
more deeply at these demographic quirks around the world, so
I tagged in the lead author of a different groundbreaking
chapter in this year's World Happiness Report.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
My name is Emily Wilroth. I am an assistant professor
at Washington University in Saint Louis and the Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Emily studies well being across the lifespan, and specifically what
it takes to maintain happiness as we age. Her chapter
looks for the first time at the intersection of long
life happiness and dementia. As life expectancy extends around the world,
more and more of us will experience the sort of
cognitive decline that often accompanies old age. Emily's research has
(01:58):
found that happier practices can not only delay the effects
of dementia, but can also let us live better lives
as the disease develops. It's a fascinating and timely topic,
and honestly that I hadn't really considered very much before
I read Emily's chapter, So I started by asking her
why do we so rarely talk about the happiness challenges
of aging.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I think, on the one hand, we all want to
know how we can live our best lives for our
whole life, So what we can do to age healthfully
and happily. But oftentimes I think that we don't focus
as much on older adulthood. And I think it's particularly
important to understand how we can promote well being in
older adults, and that means both leveraging their age related strengths,
(02:40):
the things that we gain as we age, but then
also what kinds of supports and resources we can provide
to help people navigate age related challenges. And I think
this is becoming increasingly important as our global population ages.
So now in most countries around the world, the average
person can expect to live into older adulthood, and the
(03:01):
World Health Organization estimates that by the year twenty fifty,
the number of older adults over the age of sixty
five is expected to double worldwide. So it's going to
become even more important for more people for us to
understand what it means to age happily.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And so when we think of some of the happiness
challenges that older adults face, you know, what are some
of the things that come to mind for a researcher
like you that studies this population.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So, on the one hand, aging comes with a lot
of age related strengths. We know that a lot of
wisdom comes with age. There's some research to suggest that
older adults may even be better at regulating their emotions
and might experience more positive emotions as a result. So,
on the one hand, we know that there might be
some wellbeing benefits of aging and in older adulthood, but
(03:48):
there are also a lot of age related challenges that
people need to navigate that can impact their well being. So,
for example, many older adults will experience changes to their
physical and cognitive health that impact their ability to participate
in activities that are particularly meaningful to them. Many older
adults will also experience more losses in terms of loss
(04:10):
of loved ones, whether that's parents, spouse, friends, And then
we also know that there can be a lot of
social changes in older adulthood. Your role and your relationship
with your children or grandchildren may change. Retirement can be
really positive for many people, that it can also be
a major life change that is challenging for others. So
(04:33):
navigating this time where our health is changing, our social
roles are changing, all of that can be challenging. But also,
thankfully we have these age related strengths that are present
there too that can be drawn upon to help people
age happily.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And so one of the things that can really challenge
our ability to age happily is when older adulthood winds
up becoming synonymous with dementia. And so talk a little
bit about the prevalence of dementia and why this is
something that well being researchers really need to focus on.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Even more so, dementia's very common in older adulthood. Dementia's
a clinic goal syndrome that's characterized by progressive memory and
thinking impairments, and it impacts approximately one in ten older
adults over the age of sixty five, and actually one
in three older adults over the age of eighty five.
And so what that means is as people live longer,
(05:26):
because age is the largest risk factor for dementia, we
can expect more dementia cases. For example, by the year
twenty fifty, the World Health Organization estimates that there will
be one hundred and thirty nine million people living with
dementia worldwide. And dementia can really impact quality of life
by reducing their sense of autonomy, by making it more
(05:48):
difficult for them to engage socially with loved ones. And
sometimes there's experiences of shame or embarrassment, particularly in the
early stages when one starts noticing their new changes in
memory and thinking, and dementia can also impact quality of
life for care partners and loved ones of people living
with dementia. It can be a distressing experience to see
(06:11):
these memory and thinking changes in those that you love,
and particularly in the later stages of dementia, it often
requires a lot of caregiving, which poses sometimes a challenge
for the care partners of people living with dementia. At
the same time, I also want to make the point
that it is possible to live well with dementia. I
(06:32):
think that it's really common to take a sort of
deficit focused medical model view of dementia where we only
look at the challenges and negative experiences, and those are
very real, so I don't want to discount those, but
if we only look at that side sometimes I think
it can prevent us from seeing people living with dementia
(06:52):
as whole people.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So many of our listeners will probably know someone with
dementia or kind of have heard about it. But can
you unpack for some of the happiness challenges that individuals
with dementia face, like in their kind.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Of day to day life because of this disease.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So I think we can think of the sort of
psychological needs of people living with dementia the same way
that we think about everybody's psychological needs and what we
all need to feel happy in life. Everyone wants to
feel that their life has meaning and purpose, that they
can set goals, that they can navigate their day to
(07:28):
day life and engage in the activities that are meaningful
to them, and that they can connect with others. And
the memory and thinking impairments that come with dementia can
pose challenges to all of those aspects of life. So
on the one hand, we know that it's really important
for people to experience a sense of autonomy, that we
can care for ourselves, that we can direct our own lives,
(07:50):
and the memory and thinking impairments that come with dementia
can pose a challenge for autonomy if the individual is
no longer able to engage in some of the sort
of typical activities of daily living that they've done in
the past and now require assistance or care to do
those daily activities that can impact quality of life. Another
(08:10):
important psychological need is our need to connect with others
socially that can be impacted. In people living with dementia,
it can be sometimes more difficult to follow a conversation,
it can sometimes pose challenges and close relationships as those
relationships and the nature of them begins to change, and
so thinking about that, it's really important to create support
(08:34):
systems and strategies that provide opportunities for people living with
dementia to engage first of all with their loved ones
and maintain those existing social relationships, but also group activities
with other people living with dementia and experiencing memory and
thinking impairments. So sort of group support systems can be
really helpful. And then there's also some really interesting research
(08:58):
on intergenerational relationships and some of the positive well being boosting,
happiness boosting effects of connecting older adults living with dementia
with youngers and having that intergenerational social support system as well.
But unfortunately, there's currently no cure for dementia. We're just
starting to see some biomedical treatments that might slow cognitive
(09:21):
decline in individuals with dementia, but there is no treatment
that is going to stop the progression of dementia or
alleviate the existing symptoms of dementia and for that reason,
we've really started also focusing on strategies to prevent dementia,
and as a psychologist and a well being researcher, that's
really where my side of the science comes in. We
(09:44):
know that the way that people live their lives, lifestyle
and psychological factors can have a major influence on who's
likely to go on to develop dementia. So, for example,
a growing body of research suggests that people with higher
levels of wellbeing are actually less likely to develop dementia.
These studies have assessed wellbeing earlier in the lifespan, so
(10:06):
in midlife, our early older adulthood, and then followed people
across time for years or in many cases decades to
see who goes on to develop cognitive decline and dementia.
And what these studies have found is that people with
higher levels of wellbeing at the beginning of the study
period are the ones who are least likely to develop
dementia by the end of the study. And there's several
(10:28):
different potential reasons or explanations for this relationship. On the
one hand, we know that people with higher well being
engage in a lot of health protective behaviors that are
important for maintaining cognitive and brain health and older adulthood.
For example, people with higher wellbeing are more likely to
engage in physical exercise, they're less likely to smoke, and
(10:48):
they're likely to have supportive social relationships that can be
really protective across the lifespan. We also know that wellbeing
can serve as sort of stress buffering effect or a
shield that can protect our bodily systems from the harmful
effects of stress. Stress is just a part of life.
Everyone experiences stress, but when that stress is chronic or
(11:09):
severe or particularly uncontrollable, it can harm a lot of
our bodily systems, such as our immune functioning, our cardiovascular functioning,
our neuroendocrine system and all of those different bodily systems
are important for our risk for developing dementia, and what
research suggests is that people with higher levels of wellbeing,
(11:30):
they're less likely to be exposed to the same severe,
chronic stressors, and when they are exposed to those stressors,
they often show a more adaptive or protected physiological response,
suggesting that wellbeing might be a buffer that can sort
of stand in the way of those harmful effects that
stress typically has on the body and in turn for dementia.
(11:52):
That means that it may protect the brain and cognition
and reduce the likelihood that an individual experiencing stress will
go on to develop dementia.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's such a win win, right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's like, when we think about the kinds of things
we need to do to prevent some of these diseases
of later in life.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Some of these things I feel honestly like a bummer. Right.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
You know, we have to change how we eat or
eat much more healthy or whatever. But this is one
where it's like, no, No, What you do is you
focus on all the things that make you happier in
mid life and early in life, and that's going to
have this protective effect. It's like, it's something that we
all want to be doing anyway, but it also is
going to have this effect that we also don't think.
Was this kind of shocking to researchers when they first
started noticing this sort of connection between well being earlier
(12:33):
in life and reduced dementia later.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, And first of all, I just want to echo
your point. I think one of the reasons that it's
so exciting to think about well being as a potential
protective factor is because many of the other things that
we know impact dementia risk, such as diet and nutrition,
physical activity, quitting, smoking control, and cardiovascular risk factors. Those
(12:56):
things are really hard. We know that behavior change is hard.
Some of those, like the cardiovascular risk factors, require medical interventions,
which can be difficult to access, expensive, or have their
own limitations. But improving well being is something that, hopefully
for most people, is intrinsically valuable and intrinsically a positive experience.
(13:20):
So I think that there's a long tradition in the
science of wellbeing of thinking about the connection between well
being and mental health broadly and physical health. So on
the one hand, drawing from this longstanding science of well
being and seeing that more positive psychological factors, greater happiness
(13:41):
is associated with better physical health, it's not necessarily surprising
that we would see the same thing when it comes
to our cognitive health and dementia. But I do think
there are some findings that we're surprising to me at
least personally, and very exciting. So, for example, my lab
did a study looking at the relationship between well being
(14:02):
cognitive functions to sort of our memory and thinking skills
that are typically affected by dementia and then the actual
disease processes that cause dementia, so the neuropathology present in
people's brains. And what we found is that well being
was not necessarily related to the amount of disease pathology present,
but what it was related to was people's ability to
(14:26):
maintain those memory and thinking skills across time, even in
the presence of that dementia causing pathology. So what that
finding suggests is that well being might actually help us
to maintain our memory and thinking even when the disease
is already present in our brains. And to me, that
(14:46):
was surprising but also really exciting because it suggests that
there's these multiple pathways that scientists and medical professionals and
individuals can pursue to reduce the likelihood of dementia, both
strategies to prevent the accumulation of those disease processes, but
also alongside that strategy is like improving well that might
(15:09):
help us to be able to live well and tolerate
a certain level of neuropathology.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there definitely are things we can do to help
ward off the impact of dementia, and we'll hear about
more strategies we can use to build up our cognitive
resilience as we age when the happiness lab returns in
a moment. When we think about how to avoid disease,
we tend to think of factors that improve our physical health,
(15:39):
things like access to medicine and clean water, maybe stuff
like nutritious foods or sanitary practices. We tend not to
think of the impact of stuff like hanging out with
a friend, or taking an educational course or looking at
a painting. But Emily Wilwroth and her colleagues have learned
that one of the cruelest health challenges of our era, dementia,
can be tackled in some unexpected ways.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
When we're thinking about strategies to prevent dementia, some of
the things that we have the most control over. We
can think about engaging in social activities and fostering our
social relationships. That can be one of the strongest psychosocial
preventative factors. And we also know that social relationships and
social activity are really good for our well being. We
(16:23):
also know that physical activity and sleep are really important.
There's also various factors when we're looking into later life
that people can do to lower their risk for dementia,
and most of those are related to controlling cardiovascular risk factors, so,
for example, maintaining healthy blood pressure levels, treating diabetes if
(16:44):
it's present, quitting or not starting smoking, or excessive alcohol consumption,
all of these sort of typical health behaviors we know
play a really big role in reducing one's likelihood of
developing dementia. And more broadly, when we look at strategies
to promote well being and happiness, there's quite a few
(17:04):
strategies that the scientific literature has begun to suggest might
be effective. But I think it's really important for people
to also pay attention to their own feelings and how
they respond to these different strategies and sort of notice
what works well for them. So, for example, there's some
research to suggest that engaging in gratitude practices or mindfulness,
(17:27):
social activity, getting out in nature, moving one's body, all
of these things there's some evidence to suggest that they
can promote happiness and well being, but that doesn't mean
that they promote happiness and well being for everybody the
same way. And one thing that is nice about trying
to improve one's well being is that we are really
(17:47):
the best judges of what's working well for us. Because
we're the best judges of our own wellbeing and happiness.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
You know, so many of these happiness interventions are things
that we can do at any age. But I'm thinking
of my listeners who might be in their twenties and
their thirties and forties. You know, if you had to pick,
you know, one type of intervention that might be good
at different age ranges, what would you suggest to listeners.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
So in early life, thinking of teens and twenties, I
think staying engaged in education can be really protective. When
thinking more about midlife and thirties and forties, I'm not
gonna pick one, I'm gonna pick two. I'm going to
say one. We know that social activity is so important,
and one thing that I think is really helpful to
(18:33):
know about that is a lot of research suggests that
it is the quality of social interactions and social relationships,
not the quantity that matters. So it doesn't mean that
everyone needs to be extroverted and go out to parties
and have a million friends, but instead really just nurturing
those social relationships that you do have and spending time
with close loved ones. The other that I would say
(18:56):
for midlife is engaging in physical activity. This is so
important for our mental health as well as our physical
and cognitive health, and midlife is a really important time
to sort of be prevention focused when thinking about cardiovascular
health and ultimately cognitive health. So either maintaining or starting
a physical activity routine that is one that you feel
(19:19):
like you can maintain across the lifespan. So for some
people that might look like typical exercise going to the gym,
but for other people that might look like a daily
walk or getting out in nature or playing pickleball with friends.
So finding something that brings you joy, that gets your
body moving in mid life I think is really important.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
You mentioned in your twenties you really want to focus
on education. Why is education so important? This is often
not necessarily something I would think would matter for happiness
or sort of dementia prevention, But what does education help
us do psychologically?
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, So we see a really strong protective effect on
high quality education in lowering the likelihood of cognitive decline
in dementia in late life. And there's several reasons why
that might be. We know, for example, that cognitive activity
is really important for cognitive and brain health, and so
(20:13):
early life education might set the foundation for that, and
it also may simply be so many people have dementia
related neuropathology the disease processes that cause dementia, without necessarily
experiencing the clinical syndrome of dementia. And one reason for
that might be that if we are consistently engaged in
(20:38):
cognitive activities, we are sort of able to maintain those
memory and thinking impairments even in the presence of that pathology.
We call that cognitive resilience, and research suggests that education,
and in particular high quality education is one of the
biggest factors associated with cognitive resilience. So for many people
(21:02):
it's going to be inevitable at least now, with where
our biomedical treatments are, that demention related neuropathology you will accumulate.
But education is one of the things that we can
sort of arm ourselves with or protect ourselves with that
will allow our memory and thinking abilities to continue and
to maintain those cognitive functions in the presence of this
(21:23):
disease process.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And so as we think about these tools and strategies
we should begin engaging in, there's also this question of
when we need to start them. What do we know
about the kind of early history of some of these
preventative measures sort of dealing with dementia down the line.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
That's a great question. On the one hand, you can
imagine that maintaining and increasing well being as early as
possible and then maintaining it across the lifespan might be
the most protective. Right, there's probably no better time to
start increasing well being than the present and then maintaining
that across time. And given the mechanisms that we think
are at play with the link between well being and dementia,
(22:01):
I think that approach makes a lot of conceptual sense.
Health behaviors and their impact on health is cumulative, the
harmful of stress on our bodies that wellbeing might buffer
our cumulative So from that perspective, starting early and maintaining
well being across the lifespan might be the most beneficial.
But then on the other hand, when thinking of going
(22:21):
to implement these wellbeing interventions to improve cognitive outcomes and
reduce dementia risk for the greatest number of people, I
think that's still an open scientific question whether we should
be intervening in midlife or more proximal to when we
start to see cognitive change and the mint related neuropathology accumulate,
(22:41):
such as an early older adulthood. So I think that's
still an open scientific question that we as researchers need
to dig into more. But in terms of the general public,
I think that a strategy of increasing your wellbeing and
putting your mental health first, no matter where you are
and the lifespan, is likely to be effective.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And so so far we've been talking about ways that
we can engage our well being to prevent dementia. Later on,
you know, what do we know about what we can
do to use well being practices to improve dementia, kind
of once the disease has already started, Because I think
sometimes when people get these diagnoses, or you know, family
members or caretakers hear this, it's like this kind of
game over idea.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I think it's really common for us to take a
deficit focused approach to thinking about dementia, thinking about the
things that are lost, both at the individual level. It
can be scary for an individual to get a diagnosis
of a dementia or for a loved one to get
a diagnosis of dementia, and so it's really easy to
focus only on the challenges without also thinking about all
(23:47):
of the opportunities that that individual still has to experience
a meaningful, purposeful, joyful life. And we're also guilty of
doing this from the sort of medical system care standpoint.
So oftentimes in memory care facilities, it'll be common to
focus on unwanted behavior or distress and reducing those without
(24:12):
thinking about strategies to increase joy or happiness or purpose
or well being among individuals living with dementia. But increasingly
there is greater awareness that it is possible to live
well with dementia, and there are several strategies that can
increase the likelihood that if someone with dementia continues to
(24:32):
experience high levels of well being. So first we can
think about the environment that the individual is living in.
There's some research to suggest that older adults in general
and individuals living with dementia prefer to do what's called
aging in place, or remaining at home as long as possible,
in a comfortable, familiar environment where they're able to maintain
(24:55):
some of their typical day to day routines and some
autonomy or agency over their day to day life. Sometimes
this isn't always possible or safe for an individual to
continue to live at home right now, the traditional, most
typical model of care would be for that individual to
move into a nursing home type facility or a memory
(25:17):
care facility, and there we can think about different strategies
to make that environment as familiar and homelike and as
comfortable as possible, so rather than feeling like a hospital,
feeling more like a home. And then several countries around
the world are trying new, more innovative care models. For example,
(25:39):
there's a model called dementia villages, where individuals living with
dementia live in homelike atmospheres and apartments within a community
that has grocery stores and libraries and some of the
typical things that you would expect a community or a
neighborhood to have, but within one safe community of other
(26:02):
individuals living with dementia, as well as care partners and caregivers.
We can also think more the individual level about different
interventions or strategies that can be beneficial for well being. So,
for example, there's some research to suggest that cultural arts
interventions are really effective at increasing the wellbeing of people
(26:23):
living with dementia, and this can involve creative endeavors like
creating art, drawing, and painting, dancing and movement therapy has
been shown to be effective, but it can also be
about experiencing art and culture, whether that is viewing visual art,
listening to music, seeing theater productions. All of these different
(26:46):
ways of engaging with arts and culture can be helpful
for helping individuals living with dementia continue to experience the
same joys of life that all of us appreciate, as
well as reminiscence therapies, which are opportunities for individuals living
with dementia to recall meaningful memories and tell those through
different storytelling means. Intergenerational intervaval engines that bring together older
(27:10):
adults living with dementia with younger generations, and that opportunity
to connect across generations can be really protective for well being.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
You mentioned one of these activities that I really love,
this idea of reminiscing activities or life story books.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
What's a life story book?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And how could a family member who wanted to do
this with one of their loved ones who was experiencing dementia.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
How could they engage with something like this?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
So it can often be helpful to use physical cues,
so things like photo albums or familiar objects to help
remind people of memories that are personally meaningful to them.
You can also ask about you know, if you're thinking
about your family member living with dementia, you can ask
them to tell you stories maybe that you haven't even
(27:56):
heard before, and it can be really beneficial for a
lot of reasons. It gives the individual living with dementia
the opportunity to reflect back and sort of preserve some
of these memory worries, and to connect socially with the
person that they're telling these stories too, and thinking about
sort of the well being of the loved ones. It
(28:18):
can be also really helpful to document and record these stories,
whether that's to write them down to record them digitally.
All of these different strategies can help preserve the personhood
of the person with dementia and also provide these really
valuable keepsakes and memories and stories for their loved ones.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Another thing you talked about in the report is the
possibility that we can start using technology better to help
with dementia and sort of to help individuals with dementia
live better lives. How can technology help us here?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
First, we can think of assistive technologies, so things that
can help individuals remain safe while also maintaining their autonomy. So,
for example, GPS has been used as well as object
locators to help an individual who may be spending time
alone to be able to find important objects in their house,
(29:12):
whether that is telephone for example. Technological devices that can
help with things like administering medication and remembering to take
one's medication can be really helpful and important. But in
addition to these more assistive technologies, we can also think
of technology enabled interventions. So, for example, there's some research
(29:33):
to suggest that robotic pets can actually serve as a
really important well being intervention for older adults living with
dementia to be able to engage in sort of care
practices with a robotic cat or dog, for example. So
we can think of technologies both in how they can
help keep people safe while allowing them to maintain independence
(29:58):
and autonomy, but we can also think of them as
ways to intervene and enhance quality of life and the
opportunities to engage in meaningful activities.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I think of this so much, you know, after the
COVID nineteen pandemic, right when you know, I remember that
time towards the end of twenty twenty, when at least
to contact my older relatives, you know, who are maybe
more vulnerable from disease and so on. You know, I
wasn't able to do that in person, and you know,
before good technologies to connect, that would mean I wouldn't
have any social connection with them. But then with these
(30:29):
technologies you could actually see each other in video conference
and chat. And I think that that allows for so
much more intergenerational contact, which can be so critical for
social connection, especially as we live further away from our
relatives and so on. Is this the kind of thing
that you think that technology can be used better for
in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Absolutely, so.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I think technology we've all seen over the past few
years how technology can help us connect, whether that means
connecting with our loved ones, whether that means meeting new people,
or just increasing sort of the frequency of social contact.
And we know that social contact is so important for
health and happiness. I think that we still have a
(31:09):
lot to learn about what types of technology enabled communications
are best and for whom right so, whether that be
video chat or telephone communications, but anything that can connect
us more often with the people that we love is
likely to be beneficial for health. And happiness, including an
(31:29):
individuals living with dementia.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So as we think about all these strategies that we
can use to maybe prevent dementia and also help individuals
with dementia live their best lives. Do you have any
recommendations for people in midlife who are trying to reduce
their stress and focus on their happiness, but are dealing
with these age related changes and people that they love.
You know, are there ways that we can kind of
protect our stress or best practices for kind of handling
a dementia diagnosis in an older loved one.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
It can be really challenging when someone that we love
is diagnosed with dementia, and if we are a care
partner providing care for an individual living with dementia that
can also come with its own unique challenges. It can
be emotional distressing to see these changes in our loved ones.
And although there can be purpose and joy found in caregiving,
(32:16):
we also sometimes can see caregiver burnout or stress among
care partners, and so I think it's really important to
lean back on your own social support network, whether that
is other loved ones that you can spend time with
or that can help with the caregiving aspects, or whether
(32:37):
that's connecting with new people who have shared a similar
life experience for that sort of social support and perspective
from someone else who has been in your shoes. No
matter what age we are and no matter what difficult
life experiences we're going through, putting our happiness and placing
some importance on that and taking time to prioritize our
(32:59):
self and our well being to be able to manage
the stressors that we're experiencing is really important, and so
just empowering yourself to be able to sometimes think about
what's going to impact your own wellbeing and happiness and
engaging in the activities and self care practices that help
you to maintain your own mental health.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
I think that's so important because I think we can
get so caught up in what we can do to
help our older relatives that we sometimes put ourselves under stress,
which isn't great for our happiness and our cardiovascular health
in those kinds of things too.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Has engaging this.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Research made you a little bit more hopeful about your
own cognitive resilience. I'm curious how you've changed your behaviors
and your mindsets of knowing more about this research.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
I think that it's a really helpful reminder to put
my social relationships first, to put opportunities to move my
body first, and to really incorporate that into my daily life.
Even as someone who researches this stuff, it's really easy
to get caught up in day to day routines and
stressors and deadlines and things like that, and so it
(34:05):
is a nice reminder doing this research that putting my
well being first is an investment into my future and
into the future of.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
My loved ones.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I know many of you listen to this show because
you want to enhance your daily lives right now. But
it turns out that following the advice we share on
this podcast, practices like making friends or being kind to
others can help you build resilience to a disease that
could strike many, many decades from now. I find that amazing,
and it's certainly something I'd never thought about before reading
Emily's chapter in the World Happiness Report. But we're not
(34:38):
through with the report's insights just yet. In our next episode,
we'll turn to a different chapter from the report, one
that focuses on the other end of the age spectrum.
We'll tackle the happiness challenges facing the young, and we'll
try to figure out why children and teens in some
countries are really struggling and what we can do to
fix this sad trend. That's next time on the Happiness
Lab with me, doctor Laurie Santos,
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