Psy Life Span W8D10
Lostcauseminka
psyc2314_ppt_ch18.pptxLIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT 18e
John W. Santrock
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Chapter 18
Cognitive Development in Late Adulthood
© 2021 McGraw Hill. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom. No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill.
Chapter Outline
Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults.
Language Development.
Work and Retirement.
Mental Health.
Religion and Spirituality.
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Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults: Topics
Multidimensionality and multidirectionality.
Education, work, and health.
Use it or lose it.
Training cognitive skills.
Cognitive neuroscience and aging.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 1
Cognitive mechanics and cognitive pragmatics:
Cognitive mechanics: the hardware of the mind, reflecting the neurophysiological architecture of the brain.
Involve speed and accuracy of the processes.
Cognitive pragmatics: the culture-based software programs of the mind.
Include reading and writing skills, language comprehension, educational qualifications, professional skills, and types of knowledge that help to master or cope with life.
Cognitive mechanics may decline in old age, but cognitive pragmatics may actually improve.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 2
FIGURE 1: THEORIZED AGE CHANGES IN COGNITIVE MECHANICS AND COGNITIVE PRAGMATICS
Baltes argues that cognitive mechanics decline during aging, whereas cognitive pragmatics do not decline for many people until they become very old. Cognitive mechanics have a biological/genetic foundation; cognitive pragmatics have an experiential/cultural foundation. The broken lines from 75 to 100 years of age indicate possible individual variations in cognitive pragmatics.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 3
Speed of processing:
The speed of processing information declines in late adulthood.
There is considerable individual variation in this ability, however.
Correlated with physical aspects of aging.
Accumulated knowledge may compensate.
Slow processing predicts an increase in falls and is linked to the emergence of dementia.
Processing speed and health status are among the best predictors of living longer.
Impaired visual processing speed is linked to vehicle accidents.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 4
FIGURE 2: THE RELATION OF AGE TO REACTION TIME
In one study, the average reaction time began to slow in the forties, and this decline accelerated in the sixties and seventies (Salthouse, 19 94). The task used to assess reaction time required individuals to match numbers with symbols on a computer screen.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 5
Attention:
Older adults are less able to ignore distracting information.
Selective attention: focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant.
Divided attention: concentrating on more than one activity at the same time.
Sustained attention: focused and extended engagement.
Executive attention: aspects of thinking that include planning, allocating attention, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 6
Memory, explicit and implicit:
Explicit memory: the facts and experiences that individuals consciously know and can state.
Declines as a person ages.
Implicit memory: memory without conscious recollections; skills and routine procedures.
Less likely to be adversely affected by aging.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 7
Memory, episodic and semantic:
Episodic memory: retention of information about the where and when of life’s happenings.
Age-related decline in episodic memory impairs access to autobiographical events and the details involved.
Reminiscence bump: older adults remember more events from the second and third decades of their lives.
Semantic memory: a person’s knowledge about the world.
Declines less than episodic memory.
Tip-of-the-tongue (T O T) phenomenon: unable to retrieve information despite feeling that they should be able to.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 8
Memory: working, source, and prospective:
The “mental workbench” of working memory declines in late adulthood but can be improved with training and exercise.
Source memory: the ability to remember where one learned something.
Prospective memory: remembering to do something in the future.
Significant for tasks such as taking medicine.
Noncognitive factors like health, education, and socioeconomic status influence an older adult’s performance on memory tasks.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 9
Executive function:
Skills involved in engaging in goal-directed behavior and exercising self-control also decline.
Aspects that especially decline involve:
Updating memory representations relevant for the task at hand.
Replacing old, no longer relevant information.
There is considerable variation in older adults.
Note that executive function is increasingly seen as also involved in health, emotion regulation, adaptation to life’s challenges, motivation, and social function.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 10
Metacognition:
By middle age, adults have accumulated a great deal of metacognitive knowledge to draw on to help counteract decline in memory skills.
Deterioration in metacognition is linked to older adults’ life satisfaction.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 11
Mindfulness:
Mindfulness involves being alert, mentally present, and cognitively flexible while going through life’s everyday activities and tasks.
Meditation has become a method of mindfulness training for older adults.
Improves memory and inhibitory control.
Increases aerobic physical activity duration.
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Multidimensionality and Multidirectionality 12
Wisdom:
Wisdom is expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life that permits excellent judgment about important matters.
High levels of wisdom are rare.
Late adolescence to early adulthood is the main age window for wisdom to emerge.
Factors other than age are critical for wisdom to develop to a high level.
Personality-related factors are better predictors of wisdom than cognitive factors.
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Education, Work, and Health 1
Education:
More older adults are returning to college to further their education than past generations.
Work:
Successive generations have placed a stronger emphasis on cognitively oriented labor, linked with cognitive advantages post-retirement.
With the growth of the information society, jobs often require considerable cognitive investment.
When older adults engage in complex working tasks, their cognitive functioning shows less age-related decrease.
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Education, Work, and Health 2
Health:
Successive generations have been healthier in late adulthood as better treatments for a variety of illnesses have been developed.
Many of these illnesses have a negative impact on intellectual performance.
Researchers have also found age-related cognitive decline in older adults with mood disorders like depression.
Exercise improves cognitive functioning.
A Mediterranean diet is linked to lower risk of impairment.
Terminal decline: changes in cognitive functioning may be linked more to distance from death than to distance from birth.
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Use It or Lose It
Changes in cognitive activity patterns might result in disuse and consequent atrophy of cognitive skills.
Mental activities that likely benefit the maintenance of cognitive skills include reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and going to lectures and concerts.
The engagement model of cognitive optimization emphasizes how intellectual and social engagement can buffer age-related declines in intellectual development.
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Training Cognitive Skills
An increasing number of studies indicate that cognitive retraining is possible to some degree.
Training can improve the cognitive skills of may older adults, but
There is some loss in plasticity in late adulthood.
Sustained engagement in cognitively demanding, novel activities improves episodic memory.
Improving physical fitness can enhance cognitive functioning.
Most research has not provided consistent plausible evidence that dietary supplements accomplish major cognitive goals.
The effectiveness of brain games has often been exaggerated.
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Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging 1
Cognitive neuroscience: a discipline that studies links between the brain and cognitive functioning.
Aging and changes in the brain can influence cognitive functioning, and changes in cognitive functioning can influence the brain.
Among the findings:
Neural circuits in the brain’s prefrontal cortex decline, linked to poor complex reasoning, cognitive inhibition, and more.
Older adults are more likely to use both hemispheres to compensate for declines.
Functioning of the hippocampus declines to a lesser degree than functioning of the frontal lobes.
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Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging 2
Patterns of neural decline are more dramatic for retrieval than for encoding.
As attentional demands increase, functioning in areas of the frontal and parietal lobes involved in cognitive control becomes less effective.
Cortical thickness in the frontoparietal network predicts executive function in older adults.
Older adults have less effective connectivity between brain regions.
Exercise—walking one hour a day three days a week—appears linked to increased volume in the frontal and temporal lobes.
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Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging 3
FIGURE 3: THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX
Advances in neuroimaging are allowing researchers to make significant progress in connecting changes in the brain with cognitive development. Shown here is an f M R I of the brain’s prefrontal cortex.
Courtesy of Dr. Sam Gilbert, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UK
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Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging 4
Denise Park and Patricia Reuter-Lorenz propose a neurocognitive scaffolding view:
Increased activation in the prefrontal cortex reflects an adaptive brain that is compensating for declining neural structures and function and declines in various aspects of cognition.
Scaffolding involves the use of complementary neural circuits.
Cognitive engagement and exercise can strengthen this scaffolding.
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Language Development
Many older adults maintain or improve their word knowledge.
In late adulthood, however, some decrements in language may appear.
Difficulty retrieving words—the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
Difficulty understanding speech in certain contexts.
Older adults’ speech is lower in volume, slower, less precisely articulated, and less fluent.
Nonlanguage factors may be involved, such as slower information-processing speed and a decline in working memory.
Bilingualism may delay the onset of Alzheimer disease.
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Work and Retirement: Topics
Work.
Retirement in the United States and in other countries.
Adjustment to retirement.
Greg Sailor
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Work 1
An increasing percentage of older adults continue to work—women more than men.
Older adults who work beyond retirement age are motivated by factors involving financial status, health, knowledge, and purpose in life.
Healthier, better-educated, higher-educated older adults can work longer.
Lower-income individuals are more likely to have physically demanding jobs that are difficult to stay in as they age.
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Work 2
Cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of job performance in older adults.
Older workers also have lower rates of absenteeism, fewer accidents, and higher job satisfaction.
A cognitively stimulating work context promotes successful aging.
One study of older workers found that adaptive competence in older workers on the job was linked to:
Accurately self-evaluating one’s skills and values;
Being positive about change; and
Participating in a supportive work environment.
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Retirement in the United States and in Other Countries 1
Retirement in the United States:
On average, today’s workers will spend 10 to 15% of their lives in retirement.
In the United States in 2017, the average retirement age for men was 64 and for women was 62.
Some individuals do retire early.
Currently, there is no single dominant pattern of retirement, but rather a diverse mix of pathways.
Approximately 7 million retired Americans return to work after they have retired.
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Retirement in the United States and in Other Countries 2
Work and retirement in other countries:
France has the earliest average retirement age—60 years old for men, 61 years old for women.
Korea has the oldest retirement age—72 for men, 73 for women.
Antecedents for early retirement:
Workplace organizational pressures;
Financial security; and
Poor physical and mental health.
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Adjustment to Retirement
Older adults who adjust best to retirement are:
Healthy, active, and have adequate income.
Better educated.
Connected with extended social networks and family.
Satisfied with their lives before retiring.
Two main worries of individuals as they approach retirement are:
Having to draw retirement income from savings.
Paying for health-care expenses.
Planning ahead—in terms of both finances and other aspects of life—is important to adjusting well.
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Mental Health: Topics
Depression.
Dementia, Alzheimer disease, and other afflictions.
Science Photo Library/Getty Images
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Depression
Major depression: a mood disorder in which the individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-derogatory, and bored.
Depression is not more common among older adults; but when it occurs, it is more likely to be chronic and to increase risk of suicidal ideation.
Common predictors:
Earlier depressive symptoms.
Poor health or disability.
Loss events.
Low social support and social isolation.
Recommended treatments include medications, psychotherapy, and consistent exercise.
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 1
Dementia:
Dementia is a global term for several neurological disorders involving irreversible decline in mental function severe enough to interfere with daily living.
Alzheimer disease accounts for 60 to 80% of dementias.
The second most frequent dementia is vascular dementia.
Medium to high levels of physical activity have been linked with lower rates of dementia in 60- to 65-year-olds.
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 2
Alzheimer disease:
Alzheimer disease is a progressive, irreversible brain disorder characterized by a gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and eventually physical function.
Now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
One in 10 individuals 65 and older has Alzheimer disease.
Twice as many African Americans and one and one-half times as many Latinos have Alzheimer disease.
Two-thirds of those with Alzheimer disease in the U.S. are women.
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 3
Causes of Alzheimer disease:
Involves a deficiency in the brain messenger chemical called acetylcholine.
Deterioration is characterized by the formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.
Oxidative stress and mitochondria may play a role.
Age is an important risk factor.
A gene called apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is linked to increased presence of plaques and tangles in the brain.
Cardiac risk factors, other preexisting diseases, depression, and certain medical exposures have also been implicated.
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 4
FIGURE 4: TWO BRAINS: NORMAL AGING AND ALZHEIMER DISEASE
The photograph on the left shows a slice of a normal aging brain, and the photograph on the right shows a slice of a brain ravaged by Alzheimer disease. Notice the deterioration and shrinking in the brain with Alzheimer disease.
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Alfred Pasieka/Science Source
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 5
Detection and treatment of Alzheimer disease:
Mild cognitive impairment (M C I) represents a transitional state between the cognitive changes of normal aging and very early Alzheimer disease and other dementias.
M C I is recognized as a risk factor.
The current drugs used to treat Alzheimer disease only slow the downward progression; they do not address its cause.
The family can be an important support system for the Alzheimer patient, but this can have great emotional and physical costs.
Respite care can provide important breaks form the burden of providing chronic care.
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 6
Parkinson disease:
Another type of dementia is Parkinson disease, a chronic, progressive disease characterized by muscle tremors, slowing of movement, and partial facial paralysis.
Triggered by degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain.
The main treatment involves enhancing the effect of dopamine and later administering the drug L-dopa, which is converted by the brain into dopamine.
Another treatment is deep brain stimulation (D B S).
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Religion and Spirituality
Older adults are spiritual leaders in many societies.
Older adults that express a secure attachment to God have higher levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and optimism.
Religion can meet some important psychological needs for older adults.
Helping them face impending death.
Helping them find and maintain a sense of meaning in life.
Helping them to accept the inevitable losses of old age.
Ozgurdonmaz/Vetta/Getty Images
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Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Other Afflictions 4 – Text Alternative
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Two images compare normal aging brain and the one with Alzheimer disease. The slice of the normal brain shows folded fingerlike cells in blue color. The slice of a brain affected by Alzheimer disease shows shrank and damaged tissues with affected areas highlighted in yellow and red.
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