The Upside of Negative Emotions: How Do Older Adults From Different Cultures Challenge Their Self-Growth During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Background and Objective: The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised increased challenges for older adults' personal growth in diverse cultural settings. The aim of this study was to analyze negative emotions and their role on older adults' self-growth in Mexico, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a cross-national qualitative research was carried out. Methods: Data were collected from 338 community-dwelling participants aged 65 years and older, using a semi-structured interview protocol. Older adults were asked about negative emotions that significantly contribute to their self-growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis was used to identify key themes. Results: Seven main negative emotions (fear, sadness, anger, grief, boredom, loneliness, and shame) significantly contributed to seven themes of self-growth, across the samples: sharing difficult experiences with others, supportive partner, spiritual practices, engagement with life, generativity, volunteering activities, and intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Sharing difficult experiences with others was most pertinent to Mexican (13.9%) and to Italian (3.0%) participants, and a supportive partner to Portuguese (12.1%), and to Spanish participants (6.5%). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to their older adults' self-growth. This study highlighted the cultural diversity of experiences during the pandemics and underlined the upside of negative emotions and its relation to older adults' self-growth during this period.

Smart technology and the meaning in life of older adults during the Covid-19 public health emergency period: a cross-cultural qualitative study.

The exponential increase of the older segment of the population is coinciding with the growing challenges of a digital society in different socio-cultural contexts. This exploratory study aims to analyze older adult perspectives of how smart technology influenced their meaning in life during the Covid-19 Public Health Emergency period, using qualitative research at a cross-national level. Three hundred and fifty-one community-dwelling older participants aged 65-87 years were included in the study. Participants were Italian, Mexican, Portuguese and Spanish. All the narratives went through a process of content analysis. Findings of content analysis produced six themes: Meaningful relations, rewarding activities, spirituality, health and safety-related support, self-growth, and physical activity. Smart technology was important in promoting significant relations for Mexican older adults (71.3%), rewarding activities for Portuguese older adults (57.1%), spirituality for Spanish older participants (71.6%), and physical activity for Italian older adults (29.5%). This study indicated that smart technology during the Health Emergency period was important for the meaning in life of older populations, mostly by facilitating meaningful relations, rewarding activities and spirituality. Future interventions with older adults during pandemic periods should consider the diversity of themes associated with increasing older adult well-being, from a cross-cultural perspective.

Cognitive plasticity in normal and pathological aging.

The main goal of the present study is to examine to what extent age and cognitive impairment contribute to learning performance (cognitive plasticity, cognitive modifiability, or learning potential). To address this question, participants coming from four studies (Longitudinal Study of Active Aging, age range, 55-75 years, N = 458; Longitudinal Study in the very old [90+], age range, 90-102, N = 188, and Cognitive Plasticity within the Course of Cognitive Impairment, 97 "Normal", 57 mild cognitive impairment [MCI], and 98 Alzheimer's disease [AD] patients) were examined through a measure of verbal learning (developed from Rey). The results show that all age, MCI, and AD groups learned across the five learning trials of that test, but significant differences were found due to age, pathology, and education. The effects of pathology (MCI and AD) can be expressed in a metric of "years of normal decline by age"; specifically, being MCI means suffering an impairment in performance that is equivalent to the decline of a normal individual during 15 years, whereas the impact of AD is equivalent to 22.7 years. Likewise, the improvement associated with about 5 years of education is equivalent to about 1 year less of normal aging. Also, the two pathological groups significantly differed from "normal" groups in the delayed trial of the test. The most dramatic difference is that between the "normal" group and the AD patients, which shows relatively poorer performance for the AD group in the delayed trial than in the first learning trial. The potential role of this unique effect for quick detection purposes of AD is assessed (in the 75-89 years age range, sensitivity and specificity equal 0.813 and 0.917, respectively).