Abstract
The effect of the COVID-19 on the physical and mental health of Italian older individuals displaying signs of cognitive deterioration has not been deeply investigated. This longitudinal study examined the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on the psychological well-being and motor efficiency of a sample of Italian community-dwellers with and without cognitive decline. Forty-seven participants underwent instrumental gait analysis performed in ecological setting using wearable sensors, and completed a battery of tasks assessing cognitive functioning and psychological well-being, before and after the full lockdown due to the COVID-19 spreading. A series of Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) documented that the superior gait performance of the cognitively healthy participants exhibited before the COVID-19 spread, vanished when they were tested at the end of the lockdown period. Moreover, before the outbreak of the COVID-19, cognitively healthy participants and those with signs of cognitive decline reported similar levels of psychological well-being, whereas, after the lockdown, the former group reported better coping, emotional competencies, and general well-being than the participants displaying signs of cognitive decline. In conclusion, the full COVID-19 outbreak had a significant impact on the mental and motor functioning of older individuals with and without signs of cognitive deterioration living in Italy.
Highlights
Due to the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 outbreak that first appeared in Italy in February 2020, on March 9th, 2020 the Italian government imposed a nationwide quarantine, which included the impossibility for any citizen to stay out of home, except for specific reasons
A further multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine the impact of cognitive deterioration on the PWBAQ indexes recorded after the end of the COVID-19 lockdown measures
The differences in locomotion abilities of the participants with signs of cognitive decline detected at baseline are consistent with some previous findings showing that gait performance of older individuals are linked to their cognitive skills [16,17,18]
Summary
Due to the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 outbreak (a viral respiratory dis-ease that originated from the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2) that first appeared in Italy in February 2020, on March 9th, 2020 the Italian government imposed a nationwide quarantine, which included the impossibility for any citizen to stay out of home, except for specific reasons (i.e. work, health and shopping for essential goods and medications). It was essential to counteract the dramatic consequences of the out-break, such measure immediately raised many concerns especially for specific population groups such as older adults, for which the inactive lifestyle is seriously detrimental to physical and cognitive health and might even accentuate some anomalous motor and psychological patterns usually exhibited in late adulthood [1]. In this regard, it is known that in older adults prolonged forced inactivity may be associated with several adverse health outcomes, such as exacerbation of age-related muscle wasting, accelerated progression of sarcopenia, development of comorbidities, and increased risk of fall, which may result in consequent fractures and disabilities [2, 3]. Tyrrell and Williams [8] highlighted the risk of the onset of psychological mental health complications due to the COVID-19 social distancing (i.e., loneliness and social isolation) in late adulthood
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