Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
iN2L, Greenwood Village, CO, United States.
Front Public Health. 2022 Jan 14;9:750340. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.750340. eCollection 2021.
Social isolation and loneliness in older adults are associated with poor health outcomes and have been linked to an increased risk of cognitive impairment and incident dementia. Social engagement has been identified as a key factor in promoting positive health behaviors and quality of life and preventing social isolation and loneliness. Studies involving cognitively healthy older adults have shown the protective effects of both in-person and technology-based social engagement. However, the benefits of social engagement for people who are already at-risk of developing dementia, namely those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), have yet to be elucidated. We present a narrative review of the literature, summarizing the research on social engagement in MCI. First, we identified social networks (quality, size, frequency, and closeness) and social activities (frequency, format, purpose, type, and content) as two overarching dimensions of an integrative framework for social engagement derived from literature examining typical cognitive aging. We then used this framework as a lens to examine studies of social engagement in MCI to explore (i) the relationship between in-person and technology-based social engagement and cognitive, emotional, and physical health, and (ii) interventions that target social engagement including technology-based approaches. Overall, we found that persons with MCI (PwMCI) may have different levels of social engagement than those experiencing typical cognitive aging. Moreover, in-person social engagement can have a positive impact on cognitive, emotional, and physical health for PwMCI. With respect to activity and network dimensions in our framework, we found that cognitive health has been more widely examined in PwMCI relative to physical and emotional health. Very few intervention studies have targeted social engagement, but both in-person and technology-based interventions appear to have promising health and well-being outcomes. Our multidimensional framework of social engagement provides guidance for research on characterizing the protective benefits of social engagement for PwMCI and informs the development of novel interventions including technology-based approaches.
社交隔离和老年人的孤独感与健康状况不佳有关,并与认知障碍和痴呆症的风险增加有关。社交参与已被确定为促进积极健康行为和生活质量以及预防社交隔离和孤独感的关键因素。涉及认知健康的老年人的研究表明,面对面和基于技术的社交参与都具有保护作用。然而,社交参与对已经处于痴呆症风险中的人,即有轻度认知障碍 (MCI) 的人,其益处尚未阐明。我们对文献进行了叙述性综述,总结了 MCI 中社交参与的研究。首先,我们确定了社交网络(质量、规模、频率和亲密程度)和社交活动(频率、形式、目的、类型和内容)作为从研究典型认知衰老的文献中得出的社交参与综合框架的两个总体维度。然后,我们使用这个框架作为一个视角来研究 MCI 中的社交参与研究,以探讨:(i) 面对面和基于技术的社交参与与认知、情感和身体健康之间的关系;以及 (ii) 以社交参与为目标的干预措施,包括基于技术的方法。总体而言,我们发现 MCI 患者(PwMCI)的社交参与水平可能与经历典型认知衰老的人不同。此外,面对面的社交参与可以对 PwMCI 的认知、情感和身体健康产生积极影响。就我们框架中的活动和网络维度而言,我们发现认知健康在 PwMCI 中的研究比身体和情感健康更为广泛。很少有干预研究以社交参与为目标,但面对面和基于技术的干预似乎都有很有前景的健康和幸福结果。我们的社交参与多维框架为研究社交参与对 PwMCI 的保护作用提供了指导,并为包括基于技术的方法在内的新干预措施的开发提供了信息。
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