Old age is often characterised as being associated with neglect, isolation and loneliness, not least since established risks factors for loneliness include widowhood, living alone, depression and being female. Cross-sectional data have challenged the notion that loneliness is especially an old-age phenomenon but longitudinal data on loneliness is scarce. Moreover, an under-represented group in prior studies are the oldest old, those aged 85 years and more. This paper addresses these knowledge gaps using data from the Newcastle 85+ Study, a large population-based cohort aged 85 years at first interview with follow-up interviews at 18 months and three years. At baseline over half (55%) reported being always or often alone, and 41 per cent reported feeling more lonely than ten years previously, although only 2 per cent reported always feeling lonely. Women spent more time alone than men and reported more loneliness both currently and compared to the past. Length of widowhood was a key factor, with those recently widowed having twice the risk of feeling lonely and those widowed for five or more years having a lower risk of reporting increased loneliness. Overall, the findings show that loneliness is a minority experience in the oldest old but is strongly driven by length of widowhood, challenging the notion that loneliness in later life is a static experience.

The neuropsychological performance and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) brain appearance of a consecutive series of 46 in-patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) was compared with hat of 41 normal-weight controls. The groups were matched for sex, age, estimated pre-morbid intelligence and education. AN patients who had gained at least 10% of their body weight were retested and rescanned. Controls were retested after a similar interval. The AN group performed significantly worse than the controls on tasks measuring attention, visuospatial ability and memory. On tasks assessing flexibility and learning, no group differences were evident although an examination of deficits in individuals revealed that more anorexics were impaired on both. Following treatment, the AN group improved relative to the control group only on those tasks assessing attention. Comparison of MRI measures showed a significant proportion of anorexics had enlarged lateral ventricles and dilated sulci on both cortical and cerebellar surfaces, but no dilatation was evident for the third and fourth ventricular measures. Improvements were found after treatment on some of the radiological measures but many differences remained. Relationships between morphological brain changes and cognitive impairments were weak. Lower weight, but not duration of illness, was associated with poorer performance on tasks assessing flexibility/inhibition and memory, and with greater MRI ventricular size.