Paper Requirement

Chapter 18:

Cognitive Development in Late Adulthood

Learning Goals

Learning Goal 1: Describe the cognitive functioning of older adults

A. Distinguish between multidimensionality and multidirectionality.

B. Discuss the relationship between education, work, and health.

C. Discuss research on the maintenance of cognitive skills (i.e., use it or lose it).

D. Explain training in cognitive skills.

E. Discuss cognitive neuroscience and aging.

Learning Goal 2: Characterize changes in language in older adults.

A. Discuss how language skills change in older adulthood.

Learning Goal 3: Discuss aging and adaptation to work and retirement.

A. Describe and discuss work in late adulthood.

B. Discuss retirement trends and attitudes in the elderly in the United States and around the

world.

C. Describe and discuss factors for healthy retirement adjustment.

Learning Goal 4: Describe mental health problems in older adults.

A. Define and discuss depression in relation to the elderly.

B. Define and discuss dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and other afflictions.

C. Discuss fear of victimization, crime, and maltreatment of the elderly.

Learning Goal 5: Explain the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of older adults.

A. Describe and discuss elderly attitudes toward religion and its impact on longevity.

Questions:

 What kinds of cognitive tasks do older adults do well?  What kinds of cognitive tasks do older adults have more difficulty? Multidimensionality

 Cognitive mechanics: the “hardware” of the mind  Speed and accuracy of processes involved in sensory input, attention, visual and

motor memory, discrimination, comparison, and categorization

 Tends to decline with age  Strongly influenced by biology and heredity

 Cognitive pragmatics: culture-based “software” programs of the mind  Reading, writing, and educational qualifications  Professional skills and language comprehension  Knowledge of self and life skills

 May improve with age  Strong cultural influences

 Speed of Processing:  Speed of processing information declines in late adulthood

 Considerable individual variation  Often due to a decline in brain and CNS functioning

 Attention:  Selective attention: focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while

ignoring others that are irrelevant

 Older adults are generally less strong at this

 Attention (continued):  Divided attention: concentrating on more than one activity at the same time

 When tasks are easy, age differences are minimal  The more difficult the tasks, the less effectively older adults divide attention

 Sustained attention: readiness to detect and respond to small changes occurring at random times in the environment

 Older adults perform just as well on simple tasks; but performance drops on complex tasks

 Memory:  Memory changes during aging, but not all memory changes in the same way  Episodic memory: younger adults have better episodic memory  Semantic memory: does not decline as drastically as episodic memory

 Exception: tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon  Working memory and perceptual speed: decline during the late adulthood years  Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that individuals consciously

know and can state

 Implicit memory: memory without conscious recollection; skills and routines that are automatically performed

 Implicit memory shows less aging declines than explicit memory  Source memory: the ability to remember where one learned something

 Decreases with age during late adulthood  Prospective memory: remembering to do something in the future

 Age decline depends on the nature of the task and what is being assessed  Older adults’ beliefs and expectancies about memory play a role in their actual

memory

 Memory ability is influenced by health, education, and socioeconomic status  Research has relied primarily on laboratory tests of memory, not real-world tasks

 Wisdom:  Wisdom: 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

Education, Work, and Health

 Education:  Successive generations in America’s 20th century were better educated  Older adults might seek more education for a number of reasons

 Work:  Successive generations have placed a stronger emphasis on cognitively oriented

labor

 Substantive complex work is linked with higher intellectual functioning in older adults

 Health:  Successive generations have been healthier in late adulthood

 Better treatments for a variety of illnesses  Lifestyle and exercise are linked to improved cognitive functioning  Mental health can influence cognitive functioning  Terminal decline: changes in cognitive functioning may be linked more to distance

from death than distance from birth Use It or lose it

 Changes in cognitive activity patterns can result in disuse and lead to atrophy of skills

 Certain mental activities can benefit the maintenance of cognitive skills  Reading books, doing crossword puzzles, going to lectures and concerts

 Research suggests that mental exercise may reduce cognitive decline and lower the likelihood of developing Alzheimer disease

Training Cognitive Skills

 Training can improve the cognitive skills of many older adults  There is some loss in plasticity in late adulthood, especially in the oldest-old  Improving the physical fitness of older adults can improve their cognitive functioning Cognitive neuroscience and aging

 Cognitive neuroscience: discipline that studies links between the brain and cognitive functioning

 Changes in the brain can influence cognitive functioning, and changes in cognitive functioning can influence the brain

 Cognitive neuroscience is beginning to uncover important links between aging, the brain, and cognitive functioning

Language Development

 Some decrements in language may appear in late adulthood  T ip-of-the-tongue phenomenon  Difficulty understanding speech due to hearing problems

 Speech of older adults is typically lower in volume, slower, less precisely articulated, and less fluent

 Non-language factors may be responsible for some of the decline in language skills  Slower information processing speed  Decline in working memory

Work

 From 1900 to 2000, the number of men over age 65 who work full-time decreased by about 70%, probably due to the availability of part-time work. Older adults who work tend to do so part-time.

 Good health, a strong psychological commitment to work, and a distaste for retirement are important factors related to continued employment into old age

 Cognitive ability is the best predictor of job performance in older adults  Older workers have lower rates of absenteeism, fewer accidents, and increased job

satisfaction

 Many middle-aged and older adults are embarking on a 2nd or 3rd career  Many older adults participate in unpaid work as volunteers

Retirement

 On average, workers spend 10%–15% of their lives in retirement

 Life paths for individuals in their 60’s:  Some continue work  Some retire from their career work and start a new and different job  Some retire from career jobs but do volunteer work  Some move in and out of the work force  Some individuals move to a disability status and eventually into retirement  Some who are laid off define it as “retirement”

Adjustment to Retirement

 Retirement is a process, not an event  Older adults who adjust best to retirement:

 Have an adequate income

 Are better educated  Are healthy and active  Have extended social networks and family  Were satisfied with their lives before retiring

Mental Health: Depression

 Major depression: mood disorder in which the individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-derogatory, and bored. Considered the “common cold” of mental disorders.

 Depression does not become more frequent in late adulthood  Fewer economic hardships  Fewer negative social exchanges  Increased religiosity

 Depressive symptoms increase in the oldest-old  Higher percentage of women  More physical disability  More cognitive impairment  Lower socioeconomic status

 Women show more depression at 50 and 60 years of age, but depression in men increases from 60 to 80

 Common predictors:

 Earlier depressive symptoms  Poor health or disability  Loss events  Low social support

 25% of individuals who commit suicide in the U.S. are 65 years of age or older  Older adult most likely to commit suicide is a male who lives alone, has lost his spouse,

and is experiencing failing health Dementia and Alzheimer Disease

 Dementia: any neurological disorder in which the primary symptoms involve a deterioration of mental functioning

 20% of individuals over the age of 80 have dementia  Alzheimer Disease: a common form of dementia that is characterized by a gradual

deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and eventually, physical function Definitely check out this video, it’s very educational:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq_Er-tqPsA

 Rates could triple within the next 50 years as people live longer  Divided into early-onset (younger than 65) or late-onset (later than 65)  Alzheimer involves a deficiency in the brain messenger chemical acetylcholine  Brain shrinks and deteriorates as memory ability decreases

 Formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles  Age is an important risk factor, and genes also play an important role  Healthy lifestyle factors may lower the risk

 Mild Cognitive Impairment represents a transitional state between the cognitive changes of normal aging and very early disease

 Deficits in episodic memory appear to be an especially important early indication of risk

 Several medications have been approved to treat Alzheimer disease  Caring for people with Alzheimer is a major concern  Support is often emotionally and physically draining for the family

 50% of family caregivers report depression  Female caregivers report more caregiving hours, higher levels of burden and depression,

and lower levels of well-being and physical health than male caregivers

 Respite care services have been developed to help people who take care of family members with Alzheimer disease

 Multi-Infarct Dementia: a sporadic and progressive loss of intellectual functioning caused by repeated temporary obstruction of blood flow in cerebral arteries

 More common among men with a history of high blood pressure  Recovery is possible

 Parkinson Disease: a chronic, progressive disease characterized by muscle tremors, slowing of movement, and facial paralysis

 Triggered by the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain  Several treatments are available

Victimization, Crime, and Mistreatment

 Older adults commonly report fear of being the victim of a crime, but they are actually less likely than younger adults to be victimized

 Crimes committed against older adults are likely to be serious offenses  Older adult crime victimization rates may be higher than reported by victims due to:

 Fear of retribution from criminals  Belief the criminal justice system can’t help

 Elder maltreatment is primarily committed by family members  Elder maltreatment:

 Can include neglect and physical abuse  Is most often suffered by women  Institutional abuse: mistreatment of older adults living in care facilities

 Older adults receive disproportionately fewer mental health services  Persons age 65 or older make up 11% of the population but receive only 2.7% of all

clinical services provided by psychologists

 Psychologists prefer to work with young, attractive, verbal, intelligent and successful clients (YAVISes) rather than quiet, ugly, old, institutionalized, and different clients (QUOIDs)

 Mental health care needs to be more available and affordable for older adults Religion

 Older adults are spiritual leaders in many societies around the world  Religion is:

 More significant in older adults’ lives  Related to a sense of meaning in life

 Related to higher levels of life satisfaction, optimism, and self-esteem  Associated with better health  Prayer associated with living longer

 What are your largest concerns regarding cognitive changes in late adulthood?  What steps can you can take now to affect these changes?

Here are some good links associated with this chapter:

AARP: American Association of Retired Persons

http://www.aarp.org/

Alzheimer and the Nun Study

http://www.mc.uky.edu/nunnet/

Alzheimer Disease Education

http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers

Elderhostel

http://www.elderhostel.org/

Institute for Aging and Dementia

http://aging.med.nyu.edu/

Memory and Aging

http://www.nymemory.org/