Description/Abstract
Physical distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of older adults. Older adults experiencing dementia and other forms of cognitive decline have impaired executive functioning that made it even more difficult to contend with these disruptions. This brief presents findings from research that used data from the 2021 Health and Retirement Study to examine differences in health care delays and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic among a nationally representative sample of U.S. older adults (ages 50+) with versus without cognitive decline. Results show that most older adults did not delay getting health care and did not experience poor health outcomes due to delayed care. Moreover, older adults with cognitive decline were less likely than other older adults to experience delays in getting health care during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when older adults with cognitive decline did experience health care delays, those delays were associated with worse health outcomes compared to older adults without cognitive decline.
Document Type
Research Brief
Keywords
Cognitive functioning, older adults, dementia, COVID-19
Disciplines
COVID-19 | Family, Life Course, and Society | Gerontology | Public Health | Sociology
Date
6-25-2024
Language
English
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Gelfand Family Interdisciplinary Research on Alzheimer’s Disease (InROADS) program at Syracuse University, Donna Korol, and Paul Gold for inspiring this research project. The authors thank Alyssa Kirk and Shannon Monat for providing edits on a previous version of this brief.
Recommended Citation
Sako, K.A. and Wilmoth, J.M. (2024). How Did Cognitive Status Impact Health Care Use Among Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Lerner Center Population Health Research Brief Series. Research Brief #118. Accessed at: https://surface.syr.edu/lerner/255/.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
