A web-based mindfulness intervention delivered via videoconference over eight weeks improved cognitive and psychological measures in healthy older adults. Verbal memory, attention, executive functions, interoceptive awareness, and rumination showed significant improvements that persisted at a six-month follow-up. Electroencephalography recordings revealed a decrease in alpha1 brain rhythms and an increase in alpha2 rhythms from before the intervention to the follow-up, and these brain changes correlated with cognitive and emotional improvements. The findings suggest that remotely delivered mindfulness training may benefit older adults' mental health, but controlled studies are needed to confirm the results.
A systematic review of 22 controlled clinical trials found that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy positively affect physiological markers of stress in older adults. The interventions influenced five stress-related systems: brain circuits and signaling, the sympathetic-adrenomedullary axis, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, the immune system, and gene expression and epigenetic mediators. Effects on brain circuits were observed in both clinical and community populations. The authors suggest these findings support the influence of MBIs on pathophysiological pathways related to chronic stress at a system level, though they note limitations including outcome heterogeneity, small sample sizes, and risk of bias.