Enhancing psychological resilience at the cusp of older ages: the role of social networks

Prior research has established a positive association between social support and psychological resilience. In this study, we seek to examine whether and to what extent aspects of individuals’ social network – specifically size (how many relatives and friends one has) and strength (how often did one communicate with close network members and at the time of important decisions) – are related to greater psychological resilience. We use data pertaining to 1,609 respondents from the Panel on Ageing and Transitions in Health Survey (PATHS), 2016–2017, a national study of 1,654 older midlife adults, aged 50–59, in Singapore. We estimate the relationship between social networks and psychological resilience, using inverse probability weighted regression adjustment to account for the possibility of a selection bias whereby individuals with larger or stronger social networks may be more resilient at the outset. We find that strong social networks are associated with greater psychological resilience among older midlife adults, regardless of the size of the network. Having a large social network is associated with greater resilience only if it is also a strong network. Maintaining stronger, even if small, social networks may enable individuals at the cusp of older ages to be better prepared to deal with stressful life events and challenges associated with older midlife.

Physical Indicators of Aging are Related to Cellular Senescence Signal P16INK4a in Midlife Adults

Cellular senescence signal p16INK4a has been identified as a biomarker of aging that accumulates with chronological age across several tissues in mice and humans and may be potentially modifiable by interventions. This study examined whether physical indicators of aging were associated with p16INK4a and other markers of the aging process in midlife adults. Participants were 543 adults aged 26–78 years (Mage=54.0; 50.5% female) in the Midlife in the United States Refresher cohort. Interviews, questionnaires, and performance tests measured physical indicators of aging, including the Fried frailty index, limitations in daily activities, and age-related comorbidities. RNA sequencing of whole blood assessed biomarkers of aging: p16INK4a (CDKN2A), the DNA damage response (DDR), and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Older age was associated with enhanced p16INK4a (r=.11, p=.01), DDR (r=.34, p<.001), and SASP (r=.38, p<.001) expression. Multiple regression models that adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, comorbidities, and time between assessments revealed that frailty (pre-frail/frail vs. non-frail) was associated with greater p16INK4a (B=0.13, p=.048) and marginally greater DDR (B=0.06, p=.06) expression. Limitations in daily activities were also associated with p16INK4a (B=0.12, p=.045). History of heart disease, stroke, arthritis, and cancer were associated with DDR and SASP expression in unadjusted models only (ps<.05). In summary, senescence indicator p16INK4a was elevated in whole blood samples from middle-aged adults who showed signs of frailty and limitations in daily activities. Findings suggest that whole blood p16INK4a expression might potentially be used to detect early signs of aging and target interventions to reduce biological aging and frailty.

The Positive and Negative Affect Relation in the Context of Stress and Age

Research suggests that the within-person inverse relationship between negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) indicates poorer emotional well-being, and this interaffect correlation fluctuates in relation to the context of the individual. Specifically, age, stress, and global PA all relate to changes in the interaffect correlation. The current study uses comprehensive data from the Notre Dame Study of Health & Well Being (NDHWB), which allows us to uniquely examine between-person differences in within-person change and variability in the interaffect correlation, thereby examining these constructs from a process-oriented perspective. Midlife and later life participants (N = 965) completed daily questionnaires assessing stress, NA, and PA. Three-level multi-level models illustrated that the interaffect correlation becomes more negative during times of stress, adults with greater global PA experience a stronger inverse interaffect correlation during times of stress, and days of higher stress relate to a stronger inverse interaffect correlation for older adults compared to midlife adults. The findings illustrate the idiographic nature of these relationships and suggest that later life adults and adults with high levels of global PA undergoing higher than typical stressful situations experience stronger inverse interaffect correlations.

Parenting Stress and Mental Health in Midlife Adults: Evaluating the Role of Gender

Parenthood is a major source of stress in midlife that can have adverse consequences for long-term mental health trajectories. Yet, little research asks how parenting stress impacts mental health for both mothers and fathers in midlife. The current study examined (a) whether parenting stress was associated with parental depressive and anxiety symptoms and (b) whether these associations vary by gender. We utilized data from the ongoing Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development and cognitive aging (CATSLife); participants were aged 28 to 49 who reported having child(ren) (N = 520). Participants completed surveys that encompassed measures of demographics, relationships, health, and well-being. Overall, multilevel models accounting for non-independence among siblings and with relevant covariates (e.g., number of children, marital status) showed that higher levels of parenting stress were associated with greater depressive (b = .47 (.12), p<.001) and anxiety (b = .27 (.09), p<.05) symptoms. An evaluation of the individual parenting stress items indicated that feeling less happy and more overwhelmed in the parental role were significantly associated with higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Parents who reported feeling less close to their children were also significantly more likely to report greater levels of depressive symptoms. These effects were consistent across mothers and fathers. Our study provides further insight into the negative associations between parenting stress and mental health among both mothers and fathers, and warrants further investigation into resources that may buffer these negative effects prior to late life.

The Costs of Concern: Health Implications of Worries about Aging Parents and Adult Children

As their parents age and their children enter adulthood, midlife adults need to manage their worries and concerns about both generations. In midlife, worries about aging parents’ health and emerging needs for support co-occur alongside worries about adult children’s relationships and prolonged need for support. Research reveals links between midlife adults’ worry and sleep quality, underscoring how worries compromise health and well-being. In addition to compromising sleep, worries may also contribute to poor health behaviors, such as emotional eating. Emotional eating, where individuals eat in response to stressors and negative emotions, is a significant risk factor for overeating and obesity. Less is known; however, about how midlife adults’ worries contribute to poor health behaviors. To address this gap, the current study considers how midlife adults’ concurrent and previous day’s daily worries about aging parents and adult children are associated with daily well-being and health behaviors. Respondents are midlife adults (40-60 years) from Wave II of the Family Exchanges Study (Fingerman et al., 2009). During 7 days of daily telephone interviews, respondents indicated if they worried about their adult children and their aging parent(s), if they ate food for comfort, and their daily negative mood. Controlling for demographics, on days when midlife adults worried about their adult child(ren), they reported more negative emotions than on days without these worries (p <.05). Respondents engaged in more eating for comfort the day after they reported worrying about their mother (p < .05). Implications for aging families will be discussed.

Proportional Changes in Cognitive Subdomains During Normal Brain Aging

Background: Neuroscience lacks a reliable method of screening the early stages of dementia.Objective: To improve the diagnostics of age-related cognitive functions by developing insight into the proportionality of age-related changes in cognitive subdomains.Materials and Methods: We composed a battery of psychophysiological tests and collected an open-access psychophysiological outcomes of brain atrophy (POBA) dataset by testing individuals without dementia. To extend the utility of machine learning (ML) classification in cognitive studies, we proposed estimates of the disproportional changes in cognitive functions: an index of simple reaction time to decision-making time (ISD), ISD with the accuracy performance (ISDA), and an index of performance in simple and complex visual-motor reaction with account for accuracy (ISCA). Studying the distribution of the values of the indices over age allowed us to verify whether diverse cognitive functions decline equally throughout life or there is a divergence in age-related cognitive changes.Results: Unsupervised ML clustering shows that the optimal number of homogeneous age groups is four. The sample is segregated into the following age-groups: Adolescents ∈ [0, 20), Young adults ∈ [20, 40), Midlife adults ∈ [40, 60) and Older adults ≥60 year of age. For ISD, ISDA, and ISCA values, only the median of the Adolescents group is different from that of the other three age-groups sharing a similar distribution pattern (p > 0.01). After neurodevelopment and maturation, the indices preserve almost constant values with a slight trend toward functional decline. The reaction to a moving object (RMO) test results (RMO_mean) follow another tendency. The Midlife adults group's median significantly differs from the remaining three age subsamples (p < 0.01). No general trend in age-related changes of this dependent variable is observed. For all the data (ISD, ISDA, ISCA, and RMO_mean), Levene's test reveals no significant changes of the variances in age-groups (p > 0.05). Homoscedasticity also supports our assumption about a linear dependency between the observed features and age.Conclusion: In healthy brain aging, there are proportional age-related changes in the time estimates of information processing speed and inhibitory control in task switching. Future studies should test patients with dementia to determine whether the changes of the aforementioned indicators follow different patterns.

A Cohort Comparison of Midlife Marital Quality: A Quarter Century of Change

Marital quality has been declining among recent cohorts, but whether this pattern characterizes middle-aged and older married adults is largely unknown. The doubling of the divorce rate among persons over the age of 50 years foretells poorer quality marriages for today’s midlife adults than a generation ago. Combining data on married individuals aged 50–65 years from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the 2013 Families and Relationships Study, we conduct a cohort comparison of five dimensions of midlife marital quality. Today’s older adults report more marital disagreement and instability as well as less fairness and interaction with their spouses than their counterparts did a generation ago. The two cohorts report comparable levels of marital happiness. Consistent with the upward trend in divorce during the second half of life, the quality of midlife marriages appears to have declined over the past quarter century.