The Impact of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and its Lockdown Measures on the Mental and Functional Health of Older Individuals

Abstract

The effect of the COVID-19 on the physical and mental health of Italian older individuals displaying signs of cognitive deterioration has not been deeply investigated. This longitudinal study examined the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on the psychological well-being and motor efficiency of a sample of Italian community-dwellers with and without cognitive decline. Forty-seven participants underwent instrumental gait analysis performed in ecological setting using wearable sensors, and completed a battery of tasks assessing cognitive functioning and psychological well-being, before and after the full lockdown due to the COVID-19 spreading. A series of Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) documented that the superior gait performance of the cognitively healthy participants exhibited before the COVID-19 spread, vanished when they were tested at the end of the lockdown period. Moreover, before the outbreak of the COVID-19, cognitively healthy participants and those with signs of cognitive decline reported similar levels of psychological well-being, whereas, after the lockdown, the former group reported better coping, emotional competencies, and general well-being than the participants displaying signs of cognitive decline. In conclusion, the full COVID-19 outbreak had a significant impact on the mental and motor functioning of older individuals with and without signs of cognitive deterioration living in Italy.

Worsened self-rated health in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic among older adults in Europe

“… 32 Similarly, living together with a partner in the same household seemed to serve as a protective buffer against worsening SRH, because social ties have an impact on mental and physical health. 33 This is particularly true for living together with partners 34 and partly explains why in our study respondents who were not living with their partner in the same household were more likely to show worsened SRH. Findings from other studies are in line with this interpretation and reported that social support and family functioning were consistently positively associated with health and well-being.…”

Empreende(Dor)? Investigação sobre a relação entre a personalidade e a satisfação com e o sofrimento psicológico de empreendedores brasileiros durante a pandemia da Covid-19

“…In addition, about 50 % of the entrepreneurs in the study, about 57%, expressed concern about their and their family's health, and 39.7% of the participants said they had faced great uncertainty and unpredictable events at work. Scientific research on the effects of the pandemic on mental health has focused on the general population and specific subgroups, such as women (Bittmann, 2021;Huebener et al, 2021;Nwafor et al, 2020;Suso-Ribera & Martín-Brufau, 2020), the elderly (Fastame et al, 2021), healthcare professionals (Foye et al, 2021;Greenberg et al, 2020;Ornell et al, 2021;Reiser et al, 2021), and academics (Chaturvedi et al, 2021;Chirikov, 2020;Mansur-Alves et al, 2021). However, an important subgroup of the population has been neglected in studies on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health.…”