The impact of health anxiety on cognitive processes in ageing

The project will describe, for the first time, how health anxiety might be a contributory risk factor for declining memory and thinking processes in healthy older adults. It will investigate the possible link between health anxiety and the growing incidence of dementia and explore the potential for an early-intervention based on this possible dementia vulnerability factor and investigate whether there are underlying differences in the brain structure of healthy older adults and dementia patients related to the extent of one's health-related worries.