This study focuses on the association between diverse long-term functional ability trajectories across late adulthood and old age, and older people’s mental health in Chile, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic onset.
According to the analysis, the erratic or equivocal patterns of functional limitations across time (with people transiting back and forth between low and high levels of limitations) show the worst mental health outcomes, both before and after the pandemic onset. Prevalence of people with depression increased after the COVID-19 onset in most groups, being particularly high among those with previous equivocal functional ability trajectories.
The authors suggest that the relationship between functional ability trajectories and mental health calls for a new paradigm, moving away from age as the main policy guide, and highlights the need to adopt strategies to improve population-level functional status as an efficient policy to address the challenges of population aging.
