Exposure to Positive Stereotypes Improves Elders' Health, Research Finds

November 04, 1999

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By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff

Words like "senile," "dependent," and "diseased" flashed in front of people between 60 and 85 years old as they played a computer game. Another group of oldsters saw positive words like "wise," "astute," and "accomplished."

Harvard University researchers were testing the idea that stereotypes about aging could affect how well elders walk. That’s not such a strange connection when you consider the growing body of evidence tying together physical and psychological processes, such as exercise and feelings of well-being.

"In many older people, walking speed and balance become reduced," notes Jeffrey Hausdorff, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "This reduction is attributed to weakened muscles and a less responsive nervous system, but we suspected that less intuitive processes also play a role." For example, the fear of falling can be reflected in less activity and a less stable gait.

Such ideas led Hausdorff and his colleagues to recruit 47 healthy, independently living seniors (23 women and 24 men), ostensibly to play a computer game to test the relationship between their physical and mental skills. As they played, however, positive and negative words were flashed for a few thousandths of a second on the screen. At such a speed, subjects perceive the words but without conscious awareness. After the games and subliminal words, researchers measured the oldsters’ walking speed and "swing time" (time spent with a foot off the ground).

"We didn’t expect to find such dramatic results," Hausdorff admits. "The gait of those exposed to positive words improved by almost 10 percent. This suggests that a significant portion of the age-associated decline in gait stability may actually be related to a previously unappreciated psychological effect."

The researchers found no change in the gaits of those exposed to negative words. "Perhaps this reflects the general predominance of negative views about old age," Hausdorff speculates. "If so, enhancement of one’s self-image may partly reverse physical changes that decrease the ability of older people to perform daily living activities, increase their risk of injuries from falls, and hasten their need for admission to a nursing home."

Exercise Reduces Wobbliness
Hausdorff and his colleagues do their research at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where they have developed technology to study the rhythms and wobbles of walking. One study about to be completed shows that certain kinds of exercise may reduce the risk of falling in elders, one of the most punishing medical problems for people 70 to 90 years old.

The substantial improvement in walking speed observed after less than 30 minutes of positive input is similar to gains that have been observed in studies of older people after months of rigorous exercise. "In our study," Hausdorff says, "the gait improvement was roughly equivalent to what we see after 12 weeks of robust exercise training with weights or strength-building machines."

Hausdorff reported the results of this study in the November issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, along with colleagues Becca Levy of Yale University School of Medicine and Jeanne Wei of Harvard Medical School. While a graduate student at Harvard, Levy did research showing that positive stereotyping on a subconscious level can improve the memory of oldsters, at least for a short time.

"Because stereotypes of aging have such a powerful impact, interventions that permanently enhance perception of old age may prove beneficial, along with exercise, to improve gait and the functional independence of older people," Hausdorff says. "We’re following up our preliminary studies to determine how the results can be used to help older people in everyday situations."