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Comparison of views on aging between family caregivers of people living with dementia and non-caregivers: Australian data spanning the full adult lifespan

This Australian cross-sectional study spanning the adult lifespan reveals that family caregivers of people with dementia hold more negative general and personal views on aging compared to non-caregivers, with the tendency to feel older being particularly pronounced among older caregivers.

Original authors: Serena Sabatini, Katya Numbers, Fiona S Rupprecht, Enrico Sella, Amber Izett, Erika Borella, Elena Carbone, Victoria Tischler, Claire V Burley, Blossom C M Stephan

Published 2026-06-26

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CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Serena Sabatini, Katya Numbers, Fiona S Rupprecht, Enrico Sella, Amber Izett, Erika Borella, Elena Carbone, Victoria Tischler, Claire V Burley, Blossom C M Stephan

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

The Big Picture: A Tale of Two Groups

Imagine two groups of people living in Australia, ranging from young adults (18 years old) to seniors (88 years old).

Group A (The Caregivers): These are people currently looking after a family member with dementia (a condition that affects memory and thinking).
Group B (The Non-Caregivers): These are people who have never taken on this specific role.

The researchers wanted to know: Does taking care of a loved one with dementia change how you see aging? Do you start thinking getting older is a hopeless, fixed trap, or do you feel like you are aging faster than you actually are?

The "Aging Lens" Analogy

Think of your view on aging like a pair of glasses.

General Views (The Landscape): What you think about everyone else getting older. Is aging a fixed destiny written in your DNA, or can you change it?
Personal Views (The Mirror): How you see yourself getting older. Do you feel younger or older than your actual age? Do you feel like you are gaining wisdom or losing energy?

What the Study Found

The researchers put these two groups side-by-side and looked through their "aging lenses." Here is what they discovered:

1. The "Fixed Destiny" Belief (Essentialism)

The Finding: Caregivers were more likely to believe that aging is like a pre-written script that cannot be changed. They felt that getting older is mostly determined by genetics and that there is little we can do to alter the course.
The Non-Caregivers: They were more likely to believe that aging is like clay—something that can be molded and changed with effort.

2. The "Mental Health" Forecast

The Finding: When asked about what to expect as they get older, caregivers were more pessimistic specifically about their mental health. They expected to feel more anxious, depressed, or mentally tired in the future compared to non-caregivers.
The Catch: Interestingly, they didn't expect their physical bodies or thinking skills to be worse than non-caregivers. The worry was specifically about their emotional and mental state.

3. The "Loss" Inventory

The Finding: Caregivers felt they were experiencing more age-related losses in their daily lives. If you imagine aging as a backpack, caregivers felt their backpack was heavier with "losses" (like less energy, less independence, or less motivation) than the non-caregivers.
The Gain: However, they didn't feel they were missing out on any specific "gains" (like freedom or better relationships) more than the other group. It was just that the "losses" felt more heavy.

4. The "Feeling Older" Effect (Age Matters Here)

The Finding: This is where age played a special role.
- Young Caregivers: A 25-year-old caregiver didn't necessarily feel "old."
- Older Caregivers: As the participants got older, the caregivers started feeling significantly older than their non-caregiver peers.
The Metaphor: Imagine two runners. When they are young, the one carrying a heavy backpack (the caregiver) doesn't feel much different than the one running free. But as they get older and the terrain gets rougher, the person with the backpack starts feeling much more exhausted and "aged" than the other runner. The weight of the caregiving role seems to hit harder as you get older.

What the Study Did NOT Find

It's important to know what didn't happen:

Caregivers did not feel significantly different about their physical health or cognitive (thinking) abilities compared to non-caregivers.
The "feeling older" effect only happened in older adults, not the young ones.
The study did not prove that caregiving causes these feelings (since it was a snapshot in time), only that they are linked.

The Bottom Line

The study suggests that caring for a family member with dementia can act like a filter that makes aging look a bit more bleak. Caregivers tend to see aging as something unchangeable, worry more about their future mental health, and feel the weight of age-related losses more heavily.

For older caregivers, this experience also makes them feel "older" than their actual years. The researchers suggest that support programs for these families should talk openly about these feelings, helping them realize that while the role is hard, aging doesn't have to be a fixed, hopeless story.

Technical Summary: Comparison of Views on Aging Between Family Caregivers of People Living with Dementia and Non-Caregivers

Problem Statement
Negative views and expectations regarding aging (VoA) are established risk factors for poor physical, mental, and cognitive health, as well as earlier mortality. While theoretical models suggest that key life experiences, such as caregiving, may shape these views, existing empirical research has predominantly focused on middle-aged and older caregivers. There is a significant gap in understanding how caregiving for a person with dementia influences both general views on aging (GVoA) and personal views on aging (PVoA) across the full adult lifespan, particularly among young adults (18–30 years) who are often unrepresented in caregiving literature. Furthermore, previous studies have yielded inconsistent findings regarding the association between dementia caregiving and VoA, potentially due to variations in sample age, cultural context, and measurement tools.

Methodology
This cross-sectional study utilized survey data collected via the Qualtrics XM platform between September 2025 and March 2026 from an Australian sample of 387 adults aged 18 to 88 years. The participants were divided into two groups:

Family Caregivers (n=158): Individuals caring for a family member living with dementia.
Non-Caregivers (n=229): Individuals who had never provided care for a person with dementia or another older adult with health conditions.

Measures:

General Views on Aging (GVoA): Assessed using the Non-Essentialist Beliefs about Aging (NEBA) scale (single-item measure of genetic determinism vs. malleability) and the Expectations Regarding Aging (ERA) scale (12 items covering physical health, mental health, and cognitive function).
Personal Views on Aging (PVoA): Assessed using Felt Age (proportional discrepancy between chronological and felt age) and the Awareness of Age-Related Change (AARC) questionnaire, measuring perceived gains (AARC-Gains) and losses (AARC-Losses).
Covariates: Models were adjusted for age, sex, country of birth, education, marital status, employment status, and the number of chronic physical and mental health conditions.

Analysis:
Associations between caregiving status and VoA indicators were examined using multivariable linear regression models. Moderation by age was tested by including interaction terms between caregiving status and age. Effect sizes were interpreted using Cohen's guidelines for standardized coefficients ( $\beta$ ).

Key Results
After adjusting for covariates, family caregivers of people with dementia reported significantly more negative views on aging compared to non-caregivers in three specific domains:

Essentialist Beliefs: Caregivers held more essentialist beliefs about aging (i.e., viewing aging as genetically predetermined and immutable) compared to non-caregivers ( $\beta = -0.12$ ).
Mental Health Expectations: Caregivers reported more negative expectations regarding aging in the mental health domain ( $\beta = -0.19$ ).
Awareness of Losses: Caregivers reported a greater awareness of personal age-related losses ( $\beta = 0.14$ ).

No significant associations were found between caregiving status and expectations regarding physical health or cognitive function, felt age (in the overall sample), or awareness of age-related gains.

Moderation by Age:
Age significantly moderated the association between caregiving status and Felt Age. Specifically, the association between caregiving and feeling older than one's chronological age was stronger among older participants. Age did not moderate the associations for GVoA or other PVoA indicators.

Significance and Claims
The authors claim that this study is one of the first to compare GVoA and PVoA between dementia caregivers and non-caregivers across the full adult lifespan, specifically including young adults who are typically underrepresented in such research. The findings suggest that the negative impact of caregiving on views of aging is not limited to older adults but extends across the lifespan, though the internalization of these views (feeling older) may be more pronounced in older caregivers.

The paper posits that the combination of more essentialist beliefs (less perceived control) and more negative mental health expectations among caregivers is concerning, as it may foster disengagement from health-promoting behaviors. The authors suggest that support services for dementia caregivers should explicitly incorporate discussions about aging experiences, expectations, and beliefs. They highlight the potential value of psychoeducational interventions to challenge the misconception that dementia is an inevitable part of aging and to reinforce the modifiability of health trajectories, particularly for younger caregivers whose health behaviors are still forming.

The study acknowledges limitations, including its cross-sectional design which precludes causal inference, the potential for selection bias in online recruitment, and the fact that the sample's age distribution (with a high proportion of young adults) may not perfectly reflect the broader Australian caregiving population.