Cognitive Aging Through A Variety Of Theories

The impact of aging said to have a great effect on the capacity of learning of the adult. (Falasca, 2011). There are several eye problems become common as they age, cognitive ability, hearing impairments and perception may not be sufficient enough to understand and grasp all the information or it could be compromised (Falasca,

There are people who think that older adults are not capable of learning new information because of the number of neurons in their brain decline as they age. In the PBS video “Stealing Time”, the old cage potato rats were given a change of scene with an enriched environment and the results were that their dendrites grew and made new synaptic connections where there were none before. These rats were better on future tasks than the old rats that were not given a change of scene. When older adults are doing a task in a laboratory setting they are less efficient at processing the information presented to them and their reaction time is slower. “Older adults show more brain activity between the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe than

As adults age their executive functioning start to slow down. The structural changes in the prefrontal cortex

Cognitive aging is the term to describe changes in cognition with age. While Salthouse (2004) found that with cognitive aging comes cognitive decline regardless of the individual, Hayden and partners (2011) found that most (65%) elderly persons showed slow decline that does not substantially affect abilities, 27% experienced moderate decline, and only 8% showed substantial cognitive decline. These new findings show that in fact there may be individual variability when it comes to cognitive aging. One factor shown to affect cognitive aging is race (Glymour and Manly, 2008). Thus, in this paper we will review and analyze findings pertaining to cognitive aging as related by race to better understand this relationship and will also discuss suggestions for future research.

A topic I learned more of this semester in regards to the older population was dementia. Some loss in memory function is an inevitable consequence of aging, and as one ages, it takes more time to process information and retrieve memories. However, "Dementia is a general term that refers to progressive, degenerative brain dysfunction, including deterioration in memory, concentration, language skills, visuospatial skills, and reasoning, that interferes with a person's daily functioning" (Mauk, 2014, p. 377). This loss of mental skills affects the ability to function over time, causing problems with memory and how one thinks, impacting these individual's overall quality of life.

The primary method and source of control variables in this study is a 10 minute questionnaire with 14 open and closed questions, though they fail to control for key aspects such as natural cognitive decline. Though the study does make a point of mentioning their methodological flaws in the form of lack of control over testing situations, such as time of day, distractors, and degree of traffic. One of the strengths of the design is its relatively short time span, preventing fatigue. Sampling was random in so far

As we age, it is natural for cognitive deterioration, however if this deterioration significantly impairs one’s independence, a diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder is given There are currently 24 to 36 million people with neurocognitive disorders around the world, with 4.6 million new cases emerging each year (Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Jones, L., Owen, M. J., & Williams, J. (2011); Ames, D., Chiu, E., Lindsesay, J., & Shulman, K. I., 2010). Those suffering with a neurocognitive disorder experience a significant decline in facets of cognitive function such as: memory and learning, attention, perceptual motor skills, planning and decision making, language ability, or social cognition (APA, 2013, 2012). Alzheimer’s disease is the most

Evidence for a general slowing factor come from two observations: evidence from the age-related slowing across a broad range of cognitive tasks and the significant amount of shared variance across those cognitive tasks (Salthouse, 1996). Furthermore, the processing-speed theory states that the relationship between age and processing speed mediated the relationship between age and other measure of cognitive functioning such as quality of the outcome. Evidence from statistical analysis revealed significant relationships between age and perceptual speed and perceptual speed and decision accuracy, but did not reveal a significant relationship between age and decision accuracy. These findings support the mediating role of processing speed between age and decision accuracy (Salthouse, 1996). Empirical evidence has also shown the elimination of age-related differences in other areas of cognition when controlling for processing speed (e.g., Henninger, Madden, & Huettel,

There are also cognitive changes during middle adulthood. There is a mixed pattern of positive and negative changes in cognitive abilities. Processing speed starts to decrease during this time period however crystallized thought does not decline until older age (pg. 456). Working memory begins to decline however semantic memory continues to increase as we learning throughout our older years (ph 456). Usually most memory decline is during older age and can be attributed to Alzheimer’s disease of dementia.

Many studies have been broad, studying the vocabulary, reasoning, memory, and speed of the person, but zoning in on one thing specific may lead to further understanding. Studying the effects of cognitive aging in relation to memory possibly will open so many more areas of study. Studying specific age groups could also be helpful when attempting to understand cognitive aging as a whole. Learning about how speed, memory, vocabulary, and reasoning all work within a child, 10-15 years old, might be helpful when comparing that data to that information of an adult. between 50-60 years

Inhibitory control appears to be composed of a series of cogs, all contributing to the vast entity collectively understood to comprise inhibition, a construct deceptive in its shroud of artificial simplicity. Not all report impaired judgement across the lifespan, nor do they collectively perform below par on all aspects of inhibitory control. Functioning on verbal memory tasks, for example, systematically appears viable for older adults (i.e., Aslan et al., 2007; Sego et al., 2006; examples of impaired performance, see Andres et al., 2004; Radvansky et al., 1996, 2005). Loss of inhibitory function, coupled with related cognitive deficits, such as reduced efficiency in working memory and processing speed, that accompany chronological advancement,

Cognitive function decreases over time, cognitive is when you start forgetting things, lose focus, and etc. When you start getting older your brain stop functioning and then you lose thoughts, hard to focus, and forget things real easy. A study shows that once you are in your late 20’s and early 30’s your cognitive function starts to decrease causing you forget things easy. Stress may cause your cognitive to decrease because causing acute and chronic changes in the brain.

In fact, cognitive abilities gradually decline as time progresses. From the observation, it was seen that a considerable number of the seniors in the room were not able to remember or recall certain names of the volunteers. A physiological explanation for this involves the neurons of the brain. As age progresses, the fibers of the neurons’ axons twist to form neurofibrillary tangles (Kail & Cavanuagh, 2016). The causes of neurofibrillary tangles are unknown; however, the structure of the axons make it for difficult for signals to be transmitted and relayed from neuron to neuron. In late adulthood, information processing speed declines because of how the central nervous system has been deteriorating over time (Shaban, 2017). Some examples of illnesses that illustrate this process are dementia and Alzheimer’s. In both illnesses, elderly individuals are not able to store, process, and retrieve information as quickly as younger individuals. Seniors take a longer time to learn and retain new information. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 15% of old aged people suffer from mental disorders (Choolayil, 2017). The quality of cognitive abilities can either be maintained or declined depending on how frequently the individual “exercises” his or her brain. Seniors can practice and hone their critical and abstract thinking skills. The observed seniors had the opportunity to keep their minds active by participating in activities such as reading books, doing arts and crafts, or playing crossword or puzzle games. If the brain is continually inclined to think and discover, the likelihood of developing mental disorders or cognitive impairment

As individuals age, they are more at risk for cognitive impairments. Although there are multiple forms of these impairments, they mostly affect an individual’s life overall. Some aspects of these cognitive impairments are natural, whereas the course of aging may increase an individual’s likelihood of progressing to Alzheimer’s or dementia. On the other hand, some aspects, such as physical activity and social engagement, are able to be controlled by the individual which may decline the rate of cognitive impairments, such as memory loss. There are three types of memory: working memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Short-term and working memories are similar in the fact that they have the smallest time span of seconds to minutes

Aging is a process of becoming older. It is among the largest known risk factors for most human diseases and most common neurodegenerative disorders. The multisystem de¬cline is associated with increasing pathology. Aging process is associated with several structural, chemical, and functional changes in the brain as well as neurocognitive changes. Brain aging may occur in several forms, such as progressive loss of specific neuronal populations and connections, behavioral and memory deficits, increased oxidative stress (Maynard et al., 2015). In the brain, the most sensitive regions to oxidative stress include the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, and the striatum. Brain aging has many theories, oxidative stress hypothesis is one of these theories