ArticlePloS one2015
Cognitive Ageing in Great Britain in the New Century: Cohort Differences in Episodic Memory.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Life course shaping of allostatic load across 17 countries: Evidence from England, the U.S., Europe, China and Indonesia.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Gaps in Population Life Course Phenotype Trajectories Underlying Major Noncommunicable Diseases: A Scoping Review.International journal of population data science · 2026Article
- Parental socioeconomic position, childhood poverty and healthy aging: retrospective and prospective study of six cohorts across 32 wealthy and developing nations.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Parental socioeconomic position, childhood poverty and healthy ageing: retrospective and prospective study of six cohort surveys across 32 wealthy and developing nations.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Growing up in poverty, growing old in frailty: the life course shaping of health in the United States, England and Europe-a prospective and retrospective study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Trajectories of Cognitive Change and Their Association with All-Cause Mortality Among Chinese Older Adults: Results from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Modeling Risk Factors for Intraindividual Variability: A Mixed-Effects Beta-Binomial Model Applied to Cognitive Function in Older People in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.American journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Cognitive trajectories and their relationships with education and diets among older adults: a network-based 10-year cohort study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2024Article
- Life Course Socioeconomic Position and Cognitive Aging Trajectories: A Cross-National Cohort Study in China and England.Innovation in aging · 2023Article
- Lower grip strength and insufficient physical activity can increase depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older European adults: a longitudinal study.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Social Contact Mode and 15-Year Episodic Memory Trajectories in Older Adults With and Without Hearing Loss: Findings From the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2022Article
- Sex differences and the role of education in cognitive ageing: analysis of two UK-based prospective cohort studies.The Lancet. Public health · 2021Article
- Schizophrenia polygenic risk predicts general cognitive deficit but not cognitive decline in healthy older adults.Translational psychiatry · 2020Article
- Cardiovascular risk factors and memory decline in middle-aged and older adults: the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.BMC geriatrics · 2019Article
- Article
- Trajectories of allostatic load among older Americans and Britons: longitudinal cohort studies.BMC geriatrics · 2018Article
- Cataract surgery and age-related cognitive decline: A 13-year follow-up of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.PloS one · 2018Article
- Health care utilisation amongst older adults with sensory and cognitive impairments in Europe.Health economics review · 2017Article
- When Did Old Age Stop Being Depressing? Depression Trajectories of Older Americans and Britons 2002-2012.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2017Article
- Trajectories of the healthy ageing phenotype among middle-aged and older Britons, 2004-2013.Maturitas · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDementias in high income countries are set to be the third major burden of disease even as older people are increasingly required to think for themselves how to provide for their lives in retirement. Meanwhile the period of older age continues to extend with increase in life expectancy. This challenge demands an understanding of how cognition changes over an extended period in later life. But studying cognitive ageing in the population faces a difficulty from the fact that older respondents are liable to leave (attrite) before study completion. This study tested three hypotheses: trajectories of cognitive ageing in Britain show an improvement beyond the age of 50; and they are lifted by secular improvement in cognition across cohorts; lastly they are susceptible to distortion due to attrition. METHODS AND
findingsUsing the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this paper studied trajectories of episodic memory of Britons aged 50-89 from 2002 to 2013 (N = 5931). Using joint models the analysis found that levels of episodic memory follow a curvilinear shape, not a steady decline, in later life. The findings also revealed secular improvement in cognitive ageing such that as a cohort is being replaced episodic memory levels in the population improve. The analysis lastly demonstrated that failure to simultaneously model attrition can produce distorted pictures of cognitive ageing.
conclusionOld age in this century is not necessarily a period dominated by cognitive decline. In identifying behavioural factors associated with better cognitive ageing, such as social connections of traditional and online kinds, the paper raises possibilities of mustering an adequate response to the cognition challenge.
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