Adverse Childhood Experiences and Life Course Adversity Related to Geriatric Syndromes: A Narrative Review

During the last decades, there has been a growing interest in and knowledge of the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) or stressful life events and health issues in younger and adult populations. However, less is known in older populations. This narrative review aimed to summarize cross-syndrome studies on the relationship between life course exposure to adversity (e.g., ACEs, discrimination, famine, adult violence) and geriatric syndromes (e.g., dementia, frailty, falls, depression), with the primary intention of providing a descriptive mapping of the evidence and identifying gaps.

We searched PubMed for articles published between 2015 and 2026 using specific keywords.

We included 84 studies. There is substantial variability in the exposure measures used (e.g., for ACEs, from one question to more than 30) and in the outcomes (e.g., different diagnostic criteria for dementia or frailty).

Our synthesis showed that ACEs, stressful events, and other adversity measures are usually associated with greater probabilities of the occurrence of geriatric syndromes such as dementia, frailty, depression, falls, low muscle strength, multimorbidity, and functional decline. There are also some reports for mediators, depression being the most common, that may partially explain those associations.