Cognitive decline accelerated in over 50s during pandemic, study finds

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a ‘sustained decline in cognition’ in people in Britain over the age of 50, including those who did not get sick.

The research, published in the Lancet Healthy Longevity,1 found that the normal process of cognitive decline accelerated sharply in the first year of the pandemic. In the second year, the pace of decline slowed, but remained worse than the pre-pandemic pace.

In the two years from March 2020, the study’s 3,142 participants, who had an average age of 67, saw their executive function test scores decline 49% faster annually than in the year before the pandemic. …