PSYC304 Section 005 Homework 4
(Due to Bb or via email by 9:30am on Thursday, 11/24/15) Salthouse, T.A. (2004). What and when of cognitive aging. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 13, 140-144. Please read the article (available on Bb) and complete the following reading guide.
Answer all questions in your own words.
1. Why is it important to study cognitive aging?
Its paramount to study cognitive aging because the term has been described for physical aging, but it is still not well understood. The cognitive functions can affect a person’s quality of life, and even the ability to live independently. Cognitive aging in early adulthood may be cognate to the development of pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease in later adulthood.
2. When do age-related differences begin to appear? When do age-related effects become apparent to most adults?
When it comes to age-related differences it appears to begin during the early stage of adulthood when a person is in their 20s. During age-related effects, its apparent before at the age of 50. For some variables, there may be an acceleration of the influences at older ages, but age-related differences are evident in early adulthood for each variable.
3. What does Figure 1 mean? Explain the findings that it is depicting. The significance for figure 1 are distinctive relationships were found for the methods and standard blunders of execution in four intellectual tests as an element of age that had 52
The answer can be found in Section 4.1 Theories of Primary Aging, in Adult Development and Learning.
Finally, adulthood consists of early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. Early adulthood is a stage where individuals are physically in their best condition. Memory and thinking abilities are sharp, life decisions are made, and they take on roles of independence. Middle adulthood is when individuals start to reflect on their lives as a whole. Retirement planning and sadness over unaccomplished goals began to surface, during this particular stage. Some physical changes such as hearing and vision start to take place. Focusing more on health, relationships and becoming tolerable with death are all signs of late adulthood development. The immune system, vision, hearing, and muscle strength start to decline. Loss of memory is a cognitive trait that is related
From birth, the body and mind go through physical and cognitive changes that human beings will have to adapt to throughout life. Some individuals lose mental and physical abilities age they age that allow them to live a normal lifestyle. The most common age-related physical changes include hearing impairment, weakening vision, and the increasing probability of multiple chronic conditions such as arthritis, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis (Abeles, 1998). The most common cognitive changes associated with normal aging are short-term, or primary, memory loss, long-term, or secondary, memory loss, and the overall levels of performance in sustained attention. Other issues relative to aging and cognitive memory impairments are anxiety disorder, panic disorder, chronic pain, and mood disorders. This issue may cause several social, medical and family problems as individual
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.
Elderly life consists of a period of transitions; socially, physically, emotionally, culturally and cognitively. And will be a time of various adjustments. Cognitive changes such as; perception, memory, intelligence, speech, thought and mentally capability deterioration have become increasingly common among this generation. Dementia, an irreversible decline of intellectual ability coinciding with emotional disturbance, will see an increase of 40% in the next 12 years 3.
Data were analyzed using a linear regression model where the average time taken to notice a change was used as a dependent variable, and the age was used as an independent variable. This analysis revealed that there is not a significant difference between age and the amount of time that it took any individual to notice a change, F (1, 224) = 3.52, p = .06. Results show that there was an insignificant increase of .27 seconds in time taken to notice the change between ages. Age explained 1% of the variance in time taken to notice the change in stimuli, r2 = .01.
time to study the subjects and their habits before the age that Alzheimer’s usually sets
There is nothing more remarkable, then understanding how longevity has increased through the years. Even more so, how some are aging gracefully in a cognitive sense. Can certain measures be taken in order to delay future decline in memory to progressive dementia? Most doctors recommend aging patients to read or complete word searches in an effort to keep the mind active for as long as possible. In Mary Ziegler’s book, Adult development & aging, she stated “Good healthy habits contribute to longevity” (Ziegler, 2014, para. 1).
Once an individual has reached a certain age everything begins to change cognitively. For example, the memory is not as proficient, language comprehension skills decline, and regular life function is hard. It is hard for people in late adulthood to maintain regular function as they once had before. According to Berk, “In late adulthood, personal goals ---while still including gains --- increasingly focus on maintaining abilities and preventing losses” (Berk, 2017, p. 595). Older adults often tend to think something happened when in reality it did not. Their memory cannot contain as much information as before making it possible for older adults to imagine things happening. They also struggle with their vocabulary. It is hard for them to find
During middle adulthood biological and physical changes become apparent. During this time visual perception, hearing and the reproductive system
Cognitive aging is commonly labeled strictly as memory and only found in “some people”. However, this is not true. The knowledge of cognitive aging has grown immensely, but there is still much to be learned. The surface has only been scratched with many more questions to be answered. Cognitive aging is worthy of study and effects everyone, but there is also much more is still to be learned.
Young and middle adulthood are broken down into age ranges, and each range has different characteristics that an individual should
As age increases, we can expect some loss of heart, lung, joint, and sexual functioning. Some loss of brain cells and mental efficiency is a normal part of
Why is it that some seventy year olds cannot recall memories from their twenties or find it hard to follow along with a conversation? As people age they tend to change, physically and mentally. Just like our bodies, our brains change as we age. Our thinking becomes slower and we cannot remember certain things. However, memory loss, confusion and other major changes in the way our brains work may be signs of cognitive changes. This essay showcases a clinical case study on Mild Cognitive Impairment. It describes the process of cognitive development according to theorist Jean Piaget. It overviews the three basic cognitive function of the brain. It explains several cognitive impairments related to the elderly. Last, it details cognitive assessment used to detection and measurement of cognitive impairments in the elderly.
‘Normal’ cognitive aging is the process of the brain aging (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). This involves the central nervous system aging in the absence of psychiatric diseases, neurodegenerative diseases or related pathology (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). There is no known or exact cause to explain why the brain ages (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). But, there are cognitive changes, which occur as individual’s age (Harada, Natelson-Love & Triebel, 2013, p. 1). There are many myths in society that suggest as individual’s age they lose all of their cognitive abilities, but this is not the case (Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre, n.d., p. 1). While some areas show normal signs of