Assessing the Effects of Healthy and Neuropathological Aging on Personality with the Iowa Scales of Personality Change

ABSTRACT

Personality changes in older adults with brain disease may be confounded by effects of normal aging. In this cross-sectional study, ratings with the Iowa Scales of Personality Change for 62 healthy older adults (OA-H, aged 60+) were compared to matched older adults with brain diseases (OA-BD). OA-H did not show any significant personality changes from middle age to older adulthood. However, between 10% and 20% of OA-H developed a disturbance in Lack of Stamina, Inflexibility, Lability, and Lack of Insight. Otherwise, the pattern of findings suggesting normal aging effects on personality disturbances in clinical groups are generally minimal.

Acknowledgments

We thank Christopher Nguyen, PhD, for data collection and management and his unfailing good humor, and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments that substantially improved this paper.

Data availability

The data used for analyses described here are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIH/NIA under Grant AG 046539-01A1 to N.L.D