Background. Promoting older adults' health and wellbeing via intergenerational engagement can help with the needs of an ageing population. This systematic review evaluated the impacts of intergenerational engagement on cognitive, social, and health outcomes in healthy older adults and older adults with mild cognitive impairment.Research Design and Methods: Comprehensive literature searches were undertaken, with records screened and filtered according to pre-registered criteria. Study quality was formally assessed, and a narrative synthesis produced from the extracted findings.Results: Forty-four studies were included in the review. Two out of five studies found significant intergenerational engagement effects on cognitive outcomes; 16 of 24 on social outcomes; and 21 of 30 on health-related outcomes. Only 11 studies fully met the criteria for high quality research, of which the majority (eight) focused on social outcomes.Discussion and Implications: This review has identified potential benefits of intergenerational engagement, most notably regarding anxiety, generativity, cross-age attitudes, and physical activity. However, only five included studies were randomised, controlled trials, therefore strong conclusions cannot yet be drawn. More research is required involving gold standard and comparable models, enabling wider implementation and generalisability, and randomised, controlled trials to provide the highest quality evidence.

The current study aimed to explore the lived experience of patients with HCV infection. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven male participants living with HCV and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Two master themes were identified: (1) Diagnosis and the search for meaning, and (2) Impact of stigma on disclosure. Participants reported fears of contaminating others, feelings of stigma and concerns of disclosing the condition to others. Response to diagnosis, stigma and disclosure amongst the participants appeared to be interrelated and directly related to locus of blame for virus contraction. More specifically, HCV transmission via medical routes led to an externalisation of culpability and an openness to disclosure. Transmission of HCV as a direct result of intravenous drug use led to internalised blame and a fear of disclosure. The inter-and intra-personal consequences of HCV explored in the current study have potential implications for tailoring future psychological therapy and psychoeducation to the specific needs of the HCV population.

Pain is a significant problem for many people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). This exploratory study investigated the extent to which severity of pain was related to coping strategies and post-traumatic symptomatology in people with CFS/ME. Participants comprised 27 individuals with CFS/ME and 27 healthy controls. All participants completed the CFS/ME Symptom Questionnaire, the brief pain inventory, the impact of event scale-revised and the brief-COPE. It was found that CFS/ME participants present with significantly more post-traumatic stress symptoms and report significantly less emotion focused strategies and problem focused coping strategies compared with healthy controls. Severity of pain in the CFS/ME subgroup was not associated with traumatic symptomatology, although those with severe pain reported less use of self-distraction, positive re-framing and acceptance than those with mild pain. Our results suggest that the enhancement of certain coping strategies (facilitated by psychological interventions such as acceptance and commitment therapy) may be beneficial in alleviating pain in people with CFS/ME.

Background: Promoting older adults’ health and wellbeing via intergenerational engagement can help with the needs of an ageing population. This systematic review evaluated the impacts of intergenerational engagement on cognitive, social, and health outcomes in healthy older adults and older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Research Design and Methods: Comprehensive literature searches were undertaken, with records screened and filtered according to pre-registered criteria. Study quality was formally assessed, and a narrative synthesis produced from the extracted findings.Results: Forty-four studies were included in the review. Two out of five studies found significant intergenerational engagement effects on cognitive outcomes; 16 of 24 on social outcomes; and 21 of 30 on health-related outcomes. Only 11 studies fully met the criteria for high quality research, of which the majority (eight) focused on social outcomes.Discussion and Implications: This review has identified potential benefits of intergenerational engagement, most notably regarding anxiety, generativity, cross-age attitudes, and physical activity. However, only five included studies were randomised, controlled trials, therefore strong conclusions cannot yet be drawn. More research is required involving gold standard and comparable models, enabling wider implementation and generalisability, and randomised, controlled trials to provide the highest quality evidence.

Background. Age-related changes to motor speech performance are only partially explained by physiological changes in the speech system. This systematic review gathered evidence on the potential role of cognitive abilities.Method. The protocol was pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021235159). PsychInfo, PubMED, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were last searched on 05/08/2021. Eligible studies measured relationships between cognitive and motor speech abilities in healthy adults, and/or those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), aged 60+ years. Data were extracted, and study quality was evaluated using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT; Hong et al., 2018). Results were tabulated and presented using a narrative synthesis.Results. Thirty-two studies including 1,990 older adults were identified. Ten of 23 studies investigating attention/executive functioning reported significant relationships with speech in 611 healthy older adults. In MCI, the strongest evidence is for a relationship between long-term memory and pausing, identified in 4 of 4 studies of 148 participants. For other cognitive abilities, significant gaps in the literature and heterogeneity in measurements limits the ability to make general conclusions. In addition, only 10 studies overall contain the highest quality evidence. Discussion and conclusions. Attentional resources may negatively impact motor speech performance in aging. Other cognitive abilities may also be involved but more evidence is needed. The same common cause responsible for age-related cognitive and sensory declines could therefore affect motor speech. Further research using a range of cognitive measures and constrained speech tasks is required to understand the effects of cognitive aging on motor speech performance.