Background: Promoting older adults’ health and wellbeing via intergenerational engagement can help with the needs of an ageing population. This systematic review evaluated the impacts of intergenerational engagement on cognitive, social, and health outcomes in healthy older adults and older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Research Design and Methods: Comprehensive literature searches were undertaken, with records screened and filtered according to pre-registered criteria. Study quality was formally assessed, and a narrative synthesis produced from the extracted findings.Results: Forty-four studies were included in the review. Two out of five studies found significant intergenerational engagement effects on cognitive outcomes; 16 of 24 on social outcomes; and 21 of 30 on health-related outcomes. Only 11 studies fully met the criteria for high quality research, of which the majority (eight) focused on social outcomes.Discussion and Implications: This review has identified potential benefits of intergenerational engagement, most notably regarding anxiety, generativity, cross-age attitudes, and physical activity. However, only five included studies were randomised, controlled trials, therefore strong conclusions cannot yet be drawn. More research is required involving gold standard and comparable models, enabling wider implementation and generalisability, and randomised, controlled trials to provide the highest quality evidence.
Psychosocial interventions for pain management in older adults with dementia: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials
