Improving Older Adults ' Memory Performance Using Prior Task Success

A persons memory begins to deteriorate as early as their twenties and tends to pick up speed as they reach their fifties. Generally, older people have more difficulty learning new things, retrieving old information, and multitasking. To begin to understand what causes this weakening of the memory system, we must first understand how the human memory works. When the senses perceive something, several parts of the brain, including the hippocampus and frontal cortex, determine whether it will be encoded as a memory. Based on numerous factors, including how interested we are in it, if we are paying attention, and whether we are consciously trying to remember. Electric impulses in the brain carry the information to be stored in various sections. These impulses carry the information across the synapses between neurons from the release of neurotransmitters. If more cells send messages to one another, then the connections between the synapses become stronger. This explains how a repetition of an action allows us to remember it. One example is going over information multiple times while

Selective memory retrieval is research to try and recall events that occurred in your past life. In their studies, they used sixty-four participants between the age of (20-35) for the younger generation and for the 64 participants their age was over sixty. They then proceeded to show each group certain images to remember. Both groups showed a very poor retrieval to the images portrayed. For the most part, this initial test between the young and older ages was unsuccessful. Since, this experiment didn’t go as planned they came up with a new process. That process being to have a much wider group is participants. Having the participants between the age of (40-85) drastically changed the results of the experiment. Critically, the size of the beneficial but now the detrimental effect of retrieval decreased with age and this age-related decline was mediated by individuals working memory capacity, as measured by the complex operation span task. (Aslan, A., Schlichting, A., John, T., & Bauml, K. T., 2015) In this study it showed that there was an early decline in the older generation memory compared to the younger

In each trial, the participants were presented with a sequence of words on the left side of the window. Each word was presented for one and a half seconds. After all the words were presented, the response buttons were presented on the right side of window. These response buttons were labeled with words from the sequence along with new distractor words that were not part of the sequence. The goal of the participants was to click on the response buttons and identify all the words that were part of the sequence. The independent variable for this study was the types of words that were presented on the test (response buttons). The dependent variable was the percentage of each types of items reported.

Quadagno (2014) discusses ways cognitive abilities differ from young-adults, middle-old adults and oldest old adults. Cognitive decline can also be affected by conditions such as stroke, depression, diabetes, auditory, and vision problems. Older adults may also encounter age related cognitive decline in their daily lives. Cognitive abilities such as processing speed, episodic memory, working memory and dual task processing are abilities that researchers are aiming to improve in older adults (Basak, et al, 2008; Quadagno, 2014).

Additionally, to further support these theories, researchers tend to conduct studies on the famous patient case, HM, to propose the consolidation deficit theory, in which those with amnesia cannot turn short-term memories into long-term memories (Dewar et al., 2010). However, researchers Dewar, Della Sala, Beschin, and Cowan (2010), mentioned that HM’s case does not fully explain why a patient with anterograde amnesia has the ability to get better at cognitive tasks despite being unable to recall having performed those tasks at a previous time. On the same hand, Duff, Wszalek, Tranel, and Cohen (2008) mentioned that most individuals with anterograde amnesia experience heightened intelligence, attention, skill, and reasoning levels (procedural memory).

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.

An older individuals short-term memory or working memory is unable to retain as many things on the list as a younger individual is. In short-term memory, individuals are able to keep 7+/- 2 things. Young adults fall on the higher end of this and older individuals fall on the lower side of this range. External aids such as a pen and paper or a recording device can can help counteract this. Older individuals also experience inhibitory loss, which if the setting in which the free-recall test was being taken had any distractions around, it would make it much harder of rate individual to keep their attention focused on the task at hand.

The study will investigate the self reference effect with two different age groups. The two age groups will be young and older adults, trying to obtain material. The first group is told to relate that information to themselves or past experiences and, the second group is only told to review the material given. The purpose of this experiment is to see if the self reference effect is more beneficial to children rather than adults. To conduct this study, the observer has to use the naturalistic research stragesty and also see the within experimental designs. In order to have a positive income on the self reference effect. Throughout, my research I have found, “like young adults, older adults exhibited superior recognition for self-referenced items relative to the items encoded with the alternate orienting tasks, but self-referencing did not restore their memory to the level of young adults” (Gutchess, A. H., Kensinger, E. A., Yoon, C., & Schacter, D. L. 1). Thus, from past research experiments the self reference effect has seen to be more limited in adults than children.

Working memory refers to one’s ability to complete immediate tasks through the use of short-term memory and precision to make actively conscious choices. This is especially important in one’s organizational ability, reasoning, and decision-making. Unfortunately, working memory is yet another function of your brain that only gets weaker as you age into your midlife years. If you’ve ever placed a soup can in the wrong cabinet drawer, or put on non-matching socks or shoes, then you know exactly what it feels like.

The goal was to investigate the three different cognitive training areas: memory, reasoning and speed. The authors started with a baseline of participants of an average of “73.6 years old, had 13.5 years of schooling and 26% were African American.” After five years, they found that training effects with OTDI did not influence the subjects observed in the study and after the preliminary study they did a study on subjects with no diagnosis of dementia and no ADL limitations (bathing, dressing, and personal hygiene). After eliminating three of the 2,082 they worked with 2,799. The ODLT was measured by cognition and the response to verbal prompts every day and whether it led to better performance in the older

Since people converse so frequently, many do not realize how much episodic memory plays a role in simple day-to-day interaction. When one asks “What did you do today?”, you are assuming the other person remembers everything they did that day (Jones, 2015). For two people with good episodic memory, this type of conversation is successful and efficient. However, this kind of question may raise frustration or confusion for some with dementia. If a presumption of remembering details about a “typical” topic was made, inability to successfully recall can project incompetency that people with dementia try to avoid (Jones,

Also in participating in various cognitive activities, the individual has better organizational and coordination skills (Carlson et al., 2012, p. 292). Also it suggests that the previous suggested manner to delay the progression of memory loss or dementia although it may help is not the most effective and is outdated. Some weaknesses are that it focuses on only 1 gender, what may be effective for women may not be as effective in men. Also the study only focuses on the healthy and high functioning women therefore, it does not represent the opposite population. In terms of women responding to questionnaires, leaves room for false information to be

As humans begin to get older, there is a strong association between age change and the decline of cognition. This a concern that many individuals have as they start to get older, especially with the media coverage that Alzheimer’s disease has been getting. There are many causes of this decline, and it often varies highly between individuals based on their lifestyle and physical activity level (Brown AK, Liu-Ambrose T, Tate R, Lord SR, 2009). Degenerate diseases such as Alzheimer’s can also be a major cause of cognitive decline and are common in elderly populations. There are many who are looking to improve or maintain their cognitive abilities or those of a loved one, as there is an expectation that even in old age, one should be as physically and mentally fit as they can be. The human brain is very adaptive and has the capability to improve functioning even if it has been impaired (Vas, A. K., Spence, J., & Chapman, S. B. ,2015). I am looking to see if cognitive training can improve these basic brain functions in the elderly.

This tasks requires participants to be trained initially (involves only two tasks) which improves performance on the task switching test itself (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). Task switching task works in combination with task specific strategies improves prospective memory by lowering the executive load and help improve goal- directed behaviors (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). The best strategy to apply is the implementation intention strategy (IMP), refers to the “If- then planning” that provides a full descriptive plan on the pros and cons for initiating or terminating a particular future action (the where, when and how) (Brom & Kliegel, 2014). This strategy reduces the prospective memory task demands and helps older adults recall essential information for future activities. Furthermore, regular task switching training is a promising intervention that can act as a buffer against prospective memory failures in old age (Brom & Kliegel,

In addition, there was evidence of directed forgetting for both younger and older adults for recall; Hat through to Baby were particularly high as they were read out first and are moved into the Long-Term memory (Primary Effect), as expected they were the few that were remembered without a problem because the person has time to rehearse each word in their head. Racing Car was amongst the top raters as it sits in the Short-Term memory (Recency Effect) it was well remembered best, because it was the last thing read