With everyone at home for long periods because of COVID-19, there is a lot of talk about how this could affect people’s mental health. One article on The American Psychological Association website talks about how social isolation and loneliness can lead to negative psychological effects. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation The negative effects listed include poor sleep quality, depression, and impaired executive function. The first few psychological effects weren’t surprising, however, the last effect of a decrease in executive functioning was surprising
There was a study that supports this finding of a decrease in executive functioning do to a lack of social interaction. The study mainly looked at those over sixty-five because they are at a higher risk of becoming socially isolated than those younger than them. This important not only for mental health but also for cognitive health This study was done in 2018 before COVID-19. The question the study asked was if social isolation caused peoples cognitive abilities to decline overtime.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6097646/
The participants from the study were randomly selected in a welsh country and were give baseline tests to find out their cognitive ability score on the Cambridge cognitive examination which is similar to other IQ tests. This test looked at basic cognitive abilities. They also tested cognitive activity in general and tested them to find out how much they interacted with other people daily. The participants were then given the same tests again two years later to see if the environment such as social isolation had an impact on their cognitive abilities.
The study found that people who are over sixty-five could be negatively impacted by social isolation. This is because social isolation leads to less social stimulation which causes less cognitive ability. This could be a larger problem right now with COVID-19 since the older generation is less likely to use or know how to use new technologies which are how people are keeping in touch. The study also found that those who had jobs that were simple and did not involve a lot of cognitive challenges led to participants later in life having a decline in cognitive abilities. This suggests that it is important for people as they get older to be social with neighbors, friends, and family to take care of there cognitive health. This highlights how important it is that during social distancing people should reach out and engage with their older relatives so that they don’t become socially isolated and have their cognitive health affected. I highly encourage everyone to reach out to there older relatives and friends during social distancing.