Adult Development and Aging Ch (1-8) Exam

Diabetic Retinopathy

can involve fluid retention in the macula, detachment of the retina, hemorrhage, and aneurysms

Psychoneuroimmunology

the study of relations between psychological, neurological and immunological systems that raise or lower our susceptibility to and ability to recover from disease

Arthroplasty

the surgical repair of a joint or the fashioning of a movable joint, using the patient's own tissue or an artificial replacement. - relieve pain and restore range of motion by realigning or reconstructing a joint.

New directions for Nursing Homes

(Eden Alternative, the Green House Concept, and the Pioneer Network have a commitment to viewing older adultsas worthwhile members of society regardless of their physical limitations) + The Eden Alternative - Caring for frail older adults starting from the premise that skilled care environments are habitats for people rather than facilities for the frail - Protecting the dignity of each person, with 10 principles 1) The 3 plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom account for the bulk of suffering among older adults 2) Creating a habitat where live revolves around close and continuing contact with plants, animals and children 3) Easy access to human and animal companionship, as antidote to loneliness 4) Eldred-centered community creates opportunity to five as well as receive care, as the antidote to helplessness 5) Daily life with variety and spontaneity by creating environments with unexpected and unpredictable interactions, as antidote to boredom 6) Meaningful activities for the human spirit 7) Medical treatment should be the servant of genuine human caring, never its master 8) Honors elders by de-emphasising top-down bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place maximum possible decision making into hands of elders 9) Create elder centered community with human growth 10) Wise leadership - Help launched culture change to improve residents quality of life - Blends person-centered care with relational care (care that takes unintended actions into account) - Main outcomes are resident-directed care and staff empowerment + The Green House Project - Grounded in the Eden Alternative - Radical departure from the concept that skilled nursing care is best provided in large residential facilities - Provide older adults who need skilled care a small, homelike environment that shifts the focus from a large facility to a more homelike setting - 6-10 residents, in a dwelling that blends architectural with houses in the neighborhood + Emphasizes the importance of encouraging residents to participate in their care, by helping with daily tasks - Personal dignity is maintained and quality of life improved + The Pioneer Network - Focuses on changing the culture of aging in America regardless of where older adults live - Focuses on respecting older adults and providing maximally supportive environments - Know each person - Relationship is building block of a transformed culture - Respond to spirit as well as mind and body - Risk taking is a normal part of life - Put the person before the task - All elders are entitled to seld-determination wherever they live - Community is the antidote to institutionalization - Promote growth and development of all - Shape and use the potential of the environment in all aspects; physical, organizational, psychological, and spiritual - Practice self-examination, searching for new creativity and opportunities to do better - Recognize that culture change and transformation are not destinations but a journey, always a work in progress + All have in common a commitment to viewing older adults as worthwhile members of society regardless of their physical limitations

Cross Sectional Design

+ (Cross-sectional study) Developmental differences are identified by testing people of different ages at the same time + Examine age differences but not change + Weaknesses - Tests at one point in development, don't learn anything about continuity of development - Effected by cohort effects, differences in a group could be developmental or environmental - Age and Cohort effects are confounded in cross sectional research + But it dominated research + Strengths - Quick and inexpensive - Extreme age groups design

What is a stereotype?

+ A heuristic for forming impressions and predicting the behavior of others that is based on the perceived representative characteristics, real or imagined, of members of a particular social group. + Note: book says "socially shared beliefs", but I don't think this is correct, although it may be typical. + Not all stereotypes are necessarily incorrect or negative. e.g. Older adults are wise, generous, and responsible. + However, many stereotypes can lead to prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, etc, which are negative in their consequences. - Trying to identify when and whether there are age differences in the age-based stereotypes people have is a complicated matter, and there isn't a single summary result in that respect.

What is the difference between the pragmatics and the mechanics of intelligence?

+ According to Baltes, the mechanics of intelligence involve aspects of cognition such as basic information processing, problem solving, and decision making. - Similar to fluid intelligence. - Determined by basic underlying neurobiology. *** Both of these are presumably influenced by biological and genetic factors. *** Both of these decline relatively early. + The pragmatics of intelligence refers to acquired knowledge. - This is similar to the notion of crystallized intelligence. *** Both of these are presumably influenced more by environmental factors. *** Both of these decline much later, and to a lesser extent than fluid/mechanics. + Note that mechanics/fluid intelligence must be related to pragmatics/crystallized intelligence in some way. *** e.g. better mechanics likely allows for better pragmatics.

In addition to collaborative cognition, describe a study that revealed another situation involving memory in which older adults outperform younger adults

+ Adams et al. (2002): - Younger adults and older adults participants were asked to memorize a story that they would later be asked to retell to children. - Older adults remembered more details and were more fluent than Younger adults. - Result suggests that age-related memory loss is not as severe in social contexts.

What is meant by cognitive control and what types of tasks rely on cognitive control?

+ Cognitive control is the ability to regulate the focus of attention. + We can allocate time spent on any one of multiple tasks. - Are we switching attention very rapidly, or are we somehow dividing attention among the different tasks? + Math problems, writing, conversing, planning, all require cognitive control. This specific tasks may involve processes/functions such as: - Working memory, inhibiting irrelevant information, task switching. + These abilities decline with age.

What are the three theories that make up the cellular theory?

1. The Hayflick limit 2. Cross-linking theory 3. Free radical theory

....

+ Adults of different ages invoke the social rule "the marriage was already in trouble" has inverted U-shaped relationship + adults around ages 35 to 55 years as compared to 24- to 35-year-olds and those over 65 years produced this rule the most + older adults make more social judgment biases because they have trouble distinguishing between true and false information + older americans showed a greater correspondence bias than younger americans + both younger and older chinese perfromed similarly and showed less correspondence bias + older americans may focus their attributions on the individual due to a lifelong experience of an individualistic orientation + older adults prefer to maintain steady performance by optimizing their current resources rather than risking loss with an unknown strategy + emotional goals appear to help older adults because they create a supportive context for their cognitive functioning

What is prospective memory? How does it change with age?

+ Age differences larger (and more likely) on time-based tasks, and habitual tasks. + Age differences may be found on event-based tasks when the cue isn't salient, or obvious, especially when attention is divided.

The Meaning of Age

+ Age is not a simple construct or a single process + It consists of at least 3 distinct processes: primary, secondary and tertiary aging + Primary Aging: - Normal, disease free development during adulthood - Changes in biological, psychological and life cycles process are inevitable part of developing + Secondary Aging - Developmental changes that are related to disease, lifestyle and other environmentally induced changes that are not inevitable - E.g. Alzheimer's + Tertiary Aging - The rapid losses that occur shortly before death - E.g. terminal drop: where intellectual abilities show a decline in the last few years + Everyone experience of growing old is somewhat different + Chronological age: a shorthand way to index time and organize events and data by using a commonly understood standard: the calendar time + Also use gender, ethnicity and SES + Age does not directly cause things to happen + Human behavior is affected by experiences that occur with the passage of time, not time itself + Perceived Age - the age you think yourself as ("you're only as old as you feel") + Biological Age - measuring the functioning of the various vital, or life limiting, organ systems + Psychological Age - functional level of psychological bailies people use to adapt to changing environmental demands (intelligence, feelings) + Sociocultural Age - specific set of roles individuals adopt in relations to other members of the society and culture to which they belong (behaviors, habits, dress) + Emerging Adulthood - An example of the complexities of age - Some developmentalists view the period from late teens to mid/late 20s, as emerging adulthood, a period when individuals are not adolescents but not fully adults

Common Theoretical Themes and Everyday Competence

+ All 3 theories focus on the interaction between person and environment, and no single environment meets everyone's needs + Everyday Competence: persons potential ability to perform a wide range of activities considered essential for independent living; it is not the persons actual ability to perform the tasks + An older persons competence in the psychological domain includes cognitive problem solving abilities, beliefs about personal control and self efficacy and styles of coping + Must identify cultural and contextual differences in everyday competence + Willis developed a model of everyday competence incorporating all key ideas discussed earlier + He distinguishes between antecedents, components, mechanisms and outcomes of everyday competence - Antecedents include both individual and sociocultural factors (e.g. health, cognition and stereotypes, social policy) - These influence the intraindividual and contextual components, the particular domains and context of competence - Which components are most important or exert the most influence depends on the overall conditions under which the person lives - These elements of the model reflect the basic ideas in both the competence and environmental press model and the person environment model - The mechanisms involve factors that moderate the way competence is expressed - The model proposes the primary outcomes of everyday competence are psychological and physiological well being + Understanding this is important for considering if people are capable of mankind decisions for themselves + Model also points out that health outcomes of one episode of everyday competence are the antecedents of the next - Means future competence is related to current competence + Older adults can age in place to the extent their everyday competence permits

What Age Related Changes Occur in Neurons

+ As we age, number of neurons decline, decrease in size and dendrites + Increases in the deposit of certain proteins + Number of potential connections declines, as measured by the number of synapses among neurons

Living In a Nursing Home

+ At any given time, only about 5% of older adults are in nursing homes. Such Facilities are excellent examples of the importance of person-environment fit + The percentage of older adults enrolled in Medicare who live in a long-term care facility at any given point in time increases from 2% in those aged 65-74 to abou 14% of adults over age 85 + over their lifetime, over 50% of older women and about 30% of older men will spend at least some time in a long-term care facility + the gender difference is because older women take care of their husbands at home, but in turn need to relocate to a long-term care facility for their own care because their husbands are, on average, deceased

Coping

+ Attempts to deal with stressful events + Lazarus and Folkman view coping more as a complex, evolving process of dealing with stress that is learned + Coping is learned not automatic - Our first attempt might fail, but if we try again in a different way we may succeed - Why we don't cope well with stressful situations that are new + Takes time and effort + Entails only managing the situation; we need not overcome or control it

Automatic and Effortful Processing

+ Automatic processing: places minimal demands on attentional capacity and gets information into the system largely without us being aware of it; occur without our conscious awareness (e.g. walking, typing notes [when your not thingking about what your typing]) o Some appear to be "prewired" in the sense they require no attentional capacity and do not benefit from practice + Effortful processing: (or controlled processes) requires all of the available attentional capacity (conscious attention [e.g. planning your semester] o We are typically aware of what we are doing o Age differences tend to emerge with effortful processing + Under conditions where the task requirement is to simply have a familiarity with the information, there are no age differences + When there is effort and deliberate processing involved to remember the information, age differences emerge

Exercise and Brain Aging

+ Brain plasticity is enhanced as a result of aerobic exercise + Counters the declines in the hippocampus associated with Alzheimer's + The sensory cortices, such as the visual cortex,show relatively little shrinkage

What are the explanations for age differences in social beliefs?

+ Cohort differences. - Consider generational changes in the acceptability of same-sex and "inter-racial" marriage. + Life-stage differences. - Consider how different age groups endorse statements like the following in response to a young couple who eloped against their parent's wishes: *** "They were too young." Inverted U-shape. *** "You can't stop true love." U-shape. + Differences in strengths of beliefs and whether they are automatically activated may be due to age-related change in cognition. (Your professor's idea.)

Interrelations among the Forces: Developmental Influences

+ Cohort: is a group of people born at the same point or specific time span in historical time + Baltes identifies 3 sets of influences that interact to produce developmental change over the life-span 1) Normative age graded influences 2) Normative history graded influences 3) Nonnormative influences + Normative Age Graded Influences - Are experiences caused by biological, psychological and sociocultural forces that occur - To most people of a particular age - Some of these events indicate a major change in a persons life (e.g. menopause) - Normative psychological events include focusing on certain concerns at different points - Sociocultural are things like getting married, retiring - They typically correspond to major time marked events, which are often ritualized + Normative History Graded Influences - Are events that most people in a specific culture experience at the same time? - Biological (epidemics), psychological (stereotypes), sociocultural (changing attitudes) - Often give a generation its unique identity, and can have profound effects across Generations + Nonnormative Influences - Are random or rate events that may be important for a specific individual but are not - Experienced by most people - Can be favorable or unfavorable - Their unpredictability is what makes them unique - Life-cycle forces are especially key in understanding the importance of non normative - Influences

The Stability vs. Change Issue

+ Concerns the degree to which people remain the same over time, as opposed to being different + Stability at some level is essential for us to recognize that one is the same individual as time goes on + But we like to believe that our characteristics can change + Controversy over if people change from 0-18, and also in adulthood

The Continuity vs. Discontinuity Issue

+ Concerns whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression over time (continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity) + Continuity approaches usually focus on the amount of a characteristic a person has + Discontinuity focus on the kinds of characteristics a person has + Plasticity: refers to the belief that capacity is not fixed but can be learned or improved with practice

The Universal vs. Context Specific Development Controversy

+ Concerns whether there is just one path of development or several + Some theorists argue that differences are more apparent than real and that development worldwide reflects one basic process for everyone + According to this view, differences in development are simply variations on a fundamental developmental process + The opposing view is that differences between people may not just be variations on a theme + They argue that adult development and aging are inextricably intertwined with the context in which the occur + The latter is what the text uses

What seems to be a good way to guard against succumbing to age stereotypes, or any stereotype for that matter?

+ Consider the individual's abilities/characteristics/qualities while doing your best to minimize the influence of stereotypes. + Try to recognize situations in which your impression/opinion/beliefs may be influenced by stereotypes.

The Nature vs. Nurture Issue

+ Debate over the influence of genetics and environment on development + The degree to which genetic or hereditary forces influences (nature) and experiential or environmental influences (nurture) determine the king of person you are + Virtually no features of life-span development are die exclusively to either heredity or environment + Instead development is shaped by both

Changes in the Immune System

+ Defense system is based on only 3 MAJOR TYPES OF CELLS which form a network of integrating parts - Cell Mediated Immunity (consisting of thymus-derived or Y-lymphocytes) - Humoral Immunity (B-lymphocytes) - Nonspecific Immunity (monocytes and polymorphonuclear neutrophil leukocytes) + Primary job of T- and B-lymphocytes is to defend against malignant (cancerous) cells, viral infection, fungal infection and some bacteria + Natural killer (NK) cells are another lymphocyte that monitor our bodies to prevent tumor growth + There are 5 TYPES OF SPECIALIZED ANTIBODIES called Immunoglobulins + Immune system is sensitive to lifestyle and environmental factors + Older adults are MORE susceptible to certain infections and have a much HIGHER RISK or cancer - So most research believe that the immune system changes with age - Several aspects of the immune system do DECREASE in effectiveness with age + Older adults immune systems take longer to build up defences against specific diseases - Probably caused by changes in the balance in T-lymphocytes + B- lymphocytes also DECREASE in functioning +Older adults become MORE prone to serious consequences from illnesses, and benefit less from immunizations

Adult Day Care

+ Designed to provide support, companionship, and certain services during the day + Arises most often when the primary care giver is employed or has other obligations during the day + Primary goal is to delay placement into a more formal care setting + Provides alternative care that enhances self-esteem and encourages socialization + 3 general types available 1) Provides only social activities, meals and recreation, with minimal health services 2) Provides more intensive health and therapy intervention and social services for people with more serious medical problems or conditions 3) Provides specialized care to particular populations, like those with dementia or Alzheimer's + Can be independent or sponsored by a profit (22%) or non-profit (78%) organizations + May provide transportation to and from + Insurance may cover some expenses + about 35% of adult day care clients, live with an adult child and 20% with a spouse or partner + Average age of clients is over 70; about two-thirds (2/3) are women + For people with cognitive impairment, changes in routine can result in confusion or disruptive behavior, so it is important to inform them of the decision, and engage in trial runs + Compared with keeping relatives with cognitive impairments at home, the program can reduce problematic behaviors and lower the need for psychotropic medication in clients, and result in lower reports of care giving burden + Key factor in success is having appropriate programs in interventions

What factors did Langer identify as being detrimental to the well-being of nursing home residents?

+ Detrimental Factors: (1) Resident not included in decision making process. (2) Labels (e.g. "nursing home resident"; might mention priming age study here). (3) Reinforced dependence. (4) Physical qualities of Nursing Home. (5) Predictability of the environment (need to change the routine). + So, don't treat them like babies, it could kill them

Issues in Studying Adult Development and Aging

+ Developmentalists place special emphasis on 4 forces: - Biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life cycle + There are also controversies that underlie the study of human development: - Nature-nurture, change-stability, continuity-discontinuity, and universal vs. context- specific development

The Forces of Development

+ Developmentalists typically consider 4 interactive forces 1) Biological forces - Include all genetic and health related factors that affect development (e.g. menopause, facial wrinkling, 2) Psychological Forces - Include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development 3) Sociocultural Forces - Include interpersonal, societal, cultural and ethnic factors that affect development 4) Life-Cycle Forces - Reflect differences in how the same event or combination of biological, psychological and sociocultural factors affects people at different points in their lives + One useful way to organize the these forces on human development is with the biopsychosocial framework

A Model of Disability in Late Life

+ Disability: the effects of chronic conditions on peoples ability to engage in activities that are necessary, expected and personally desired in their society + Compression of Morbidity: - refers to the situation in which the average age when one becomes disabled for the first time is postponed, causing the time between the onset of disability and death to be compressed into a shorter period of time - older adults are becoming disabled later in life than previously, and are disabled for a shorter period of time before dying + Verbrugge and Jette proposed a comprehensive model of disability resulting from chronic conditions + Model consists of 4 pain parts - The main pathway emphasizes: (1) the relations between pathology (the chronic conditions a person has), (2) impairments of organ systems, (3) functional limitations in ability to perform activities, and (4) disability - Also consists of risk factors and two type of intervention strategies: environmental and health care (extraindividual factors) and behavioral and personality (intraindividual factors) + Risk Factors: are long standing behaviors or conditions that increase ones changes of functional limitation or disability (ex: low SES) + Extraindividual factors include interventions such as surgery, medication, social support services, physical environmental supports - Help people maintain their independence and may make the difference between living at home and in a long-term care facility + Intraindividual factors include such things as beginning an exercise program, keeping positive outlook + Exacerbators: things that make the situation worse than It was originally

The Life-Span Perspective

+ Divides human development into two phases: an early phase (childhood and adolescence), and a later phase (young adulthood, middle age, and old age) + The early phase is characterized by rapid age related increases in peoples size and abilities + During the later phase, changes in size are slow, but some abilities continue to develop as people continue adapting to the environment + View adult development and aging as complex phenomena that cannot be understood within the scope of a single disciplinary + Aging is a lifelong process meaning that human development never stops + One of the most important perspectives on life-span development is that of Paul Baltes, who identified 4 key features of the life-span perspective 1) Multidirectionality of Development involves both growth and decline; as people grow in one area, they may lose in another and at different rates. - Ex: Peoples vocabulary ability tents to increase throughout life but reaction time slows down 2) Plasticity - One's capacity is not predetermined or set in concrete. Many skills can be trained or improved with practice even late in life - There are limits to the degree of potential improvement 3) Historical Context - Each of us develops within a particular set of circumstances determined by the historical time in which we are born and the culture in which we grow up 4) Multiple Causation - How people develop results from a wide variety of forces, it is shaped by biological psychological, sociocultural and life-cycle forces + The life-span perspective emphasizes that human development takes a life time to complete + Balte et al. argued that life-span development consists of the dynamic interactions among growth, maintenance and loss regulation, with 4 critical factors 1) As people grow older, they show an age related reduction in the amount and quality of biologically based resources 2) There is an age related increase in the amount and quality of culture needed to generate continuously higher growth. Usually this results in a new slowing of growth as people age 3) People show an age related decline in the efficiency with which they use cultural resources 4) There is a lack of cultural "old age friendly" support structures + These factors create the need to shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically related losses as we grow old, leaving fewer resources to be devoted to continued growth

What Age Related Changes Occur in Neurotransmitters

+ Dopamine - A neurotransmitter associated with higher level cognitive functioning like inhibiting thoughts, attention, and planning, as well as emotion, movement, and pleasure and pain - Dopaminergic System: the neurons that use dopamine - High dopamine levels - linked to cognitive processing that is effortful and deliberate - Declines in dopaminergic system are related to declines in several different aspects of memory - such as episodic (short term) memory and working memory - the effective functioning of the dopaminergic system DECLINES in normal aging + Serotonin - Involves in several types of brain processes, including memory, mood, appetite and sleep - Abnormal processing of serotonin related to cognitive declines in normal again and Alzheimer's, as well as other disorders like schizophrenia + Acetylcholine - Has an important role in arousal, sensory perception, and sustaining attention - Damage to structures that use it is related to serious memory declines

The Ecology of Aging: Community Options

+ Ecology of Aging: field of environmental psychology, which seeks to understand the dynamic relations between older adults and the environments they inhabit + Small changes in environments can result in major changes in behavior

Effects of Stress on Health

+ Effects from chronic stress can last for decades; severe stress in childhood can last well into adulthood + Different types of appraisals that are interpreted as stressful create different psychological outcomes - May mean that how the body reacts depends on appraisal process - Implies that changing peoples appraisal may also be a way to lower the impacts of stress on the body

What is elderspeak? How should we communicate with older adults and nursing home residents?

+ Elderspeak is speaking to OA like they are babies. + Talk to them like they are adults...and don't yell. Basically, make them feel useful and competent, and minimize aspects of a conversation that emphasize one's limitations.

Memory Processes (memory processing) Three Steps

+ Encoding: is the process of getting information into the memory system + Storage: involves the manner in which information is represented and kept in memory (brain) + Retrieval: is getting information back our of memory (information that has been stored is accessed) + memory can fail at any of these stages

What do Structural Brain Changes mean

+ Executive functioning - Executive functioning failures in older adults can result in the erroneous selection of irrelevant information as relevant, the inability to divert attention away from irrelevant information to the task at hand, and inefficiency in switching tasks - well-practiced tasks vocabulary and wisdom can be preserved into old age - Linked to decreased volume of the prefrontal cortex - WHM in healthy older adults who show no signs of serious cognitive disease have been linked to lower cognitive test scores and decreased executive functioning - How one learns new skills has been linked to the volume of the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum + Memory - Reductions in volume of hippocampus related to memory decline - Atrophy (very severe shrinkage), abnormal neurons, losses of neurons are observed in temporal lobe in people with Alzheimer's - Similar correlations between temporal lobe atrophy and typical declines in memory performance seen late in life + Emotion (Structual Changes in Emotion) - Changes in prefrontal cortex and amygdala may lead to decrease in processing of negative emotional information, and increase in positive - Mostly see an increased emotional regulation with age - Kensinger proposed two distinct cognitive and neural processes that contribute to emotional processing and memory - Processing of negative high arousal information for memory is relatively automatic in nature and is linked to activation of amygdala as it interacts with hippocampus to support memory performance - amygdala: the region of the brain, located int the medial-temporal lobe, believed to play a key role in emotion - For memory processing of negative low arousal stimuli, more activation of the prefrontal cortexhippocampus network is necessary - Kensinger argues that whether emotional arousal enhances memory depends on the engagement in emption's specific processes that are linked to these distinct neural processes - Ex: f amygdala is damaged, you don't attend to arousing stimuli - Older adults show more brain activity between the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe than younger adults do, regardless of whether its positive or negative + Social-Emotional Cognition - Research has identified a social judgement process that involves a relatively automatic system in which people read cues un the environment quick and easy, and then make social judgements - Tendency to put people in pre-existing social categories - lateral temporal cortex, amygdala, and basal ganglia are associated with automatic social recognition - the neural basis of more reflective judgements appears to reside in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the hippocampus - structures involves in autonomic processing show less age related deterioration than the more reflective processing - processing speed declines rapidly as people age

Given that cognition and fluid intelligence declines with age, how is it that many older adults continue to successfully work in intellectually demanding jobs, sometimes even outperforming younger employees?

+ Expertise and experience. + OAs and experts may use information subconsciously (automatic rather than controlled processes are applied).

Preventive and Corrective Proactivity (PCP) Model

+ Explains how life stressors and lack of good congruence in person environment interactions (component b), especially when the person has nothing to help protect against these things, results in poor life outcomes (component F) + The helpful buffers include external resources (component E), or internal resources or dispositions (component C), and specific proactive behaviors (component D) + The model proposes proactive adaptations and helpful external resources reduce the effect of life stressors on quality of live outcomes + Two types of proactive adaptations 1) Preventive Adaptations: actions that avoid stressors and increase or build social resources (ex: increasing social network by making friends) 2) Corrective Adaptations: actions taken in response to stressors and can be facilitated by internal and external resources (e.g. changing diet after heart attack) + Older adults tend to engage in more corrective adaptations than preventive + But many actions that start as corrective turn into preventive (Ex: exercise) + Proactive adaptations significantly reduce the negative impact of stressors

How Important are Socioeconomic Factors? (SES)

+ Fairly strong and consistent relationship between SES and health related quality of life + Across all racial and ethnic groups, more affluent older adults have LOWER levels of disability and HIGHER health related quality of life

Which age group shows greater susceptibility to false memories?

+ False memories: remembering something that didn't happen, or isn't true. - Consider the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. ***The task is to remember a list of words that are all related. 1. bed, dream, moon, stars, night, etc. 2. Participants are likely to misremember hearing a word that is related, but that wasn't presented (e.g. sleep). + Older adults are more susceptible to these.

Deciding on the Best Option (how do people decide on the best option?)

+ Finding the optimal fit where individuals competence and the environmental press are in the nest balance + It must be determined whether the individual has significant cognitive or physical impairment requiring intervention or support + An assessment of the ability of family members to provide support of care + Then the next decision is whether there is an option for providing intervention in the current home situation or if other options are needed + The individual in question needs to be an intefral part of decision making

HIV/AIDS and Older Adults

+ For MEN, the most common risk factor is HOMOSEXUAL or BISEXUAL BEHAVIOR + In OLDER WOMEN, it is HETEROSEXUAL CONTACT + Thinning of vaginal wall makes it easier for HIV to enter blood stream + May believe that condom use is no longer necessary + Progression from HIV positive status to AIDS is MORE RAPID due to changes in immune system + Once diagnosed with AIDS, lifespan is significantly SHORTER than for newly diagnosed younger adults, and mortality rates are HIGHER + LESS LIKELY to tell physician, to be tested and seek support + Ageism by professionals, misconception about sexual activity among older adults, lack of knowledge are all barriers + Older men are at HIGHER risk for aids, older women also are at significant risk + aging estimate is that 1.2 million people in the United States have HIV. + By 2015 about half of United States with HIV will be over 50

Determining Functional Health Status

+ Functional Health Status: how well the person is functioning in daily life + Done to identify older adults who need help + Frail Older Adults: those who have physical disabilities, are very ill, and may have cognitive or psychological disorders and need assistance with everyday tasks - People who's competence is declining, but don't have one specific problem that differentiates them from active healthy counterparts - Constitutes minority of older adults - More prone to depression and anxiety + Everyday competence assessment consists of examining how well people can complete activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living + Activities of Daily Living (ADLs): include basic self care task such as eating, bathing, toileting, walking or dressing + Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs): are actions that entail some intellectual competence and planning + About 26% of older enrolled in Medicare need assistance with atleast one ADL +About 12% need help with at least one IADL +About 4% are sufficiently impaired that they live in an assisted living or nursing home facility

Experimental Design

+ Involves manipulating a key factor that the researcher believes is responsible for a particular behavior and randomly assigning participants to the experimental and control groups + Independent Variable - The key variable being manipulated + Dependent Variable - The behavior that is observed + Interested in identifying differences between groups of people + One group is the experimental group which receives the manipulation, and the other group is that control group which does not receive it + Researcher exerts control over all aspects of the study + Can infer cause and effect relations about the variable + Age cannot be an independent variable because we cannot manipulate it

Designs for Studying Development

+ Gerontologists must also decide how to measure possible changes or age differences that emerge as people develop + Such designs are based on 3 key variables: Age, Cohort and Time of Measurement + Age Effects - Reflect differences caused by underlying processes, such as biological, psychological or sociocultural changes - Usually represented by chronological age - Also inherent changes within the person and are not caused by the passage of time + Cohort Effects - Differences caused by experiences and circumstances unique to the generation to which one belongs - Correspond to the normative history graded influences - Can be specific (born in year 1994) or general (baby boom) + Time of Measure Effects - Reflect differences stemming from sociocultural, environmental, historical or other events at the time the data are obtained from the participants - The point in time of doing research could lead to different conclusions + All 3 influences are interrelated + Confounding: in any situation which one cannot determine which of two or more effects is responsible for the behavior observed + Confounding of the 3 effects is a serious problem in adult development and aging research + What makes developmental researchers different that other areas, is the fundamental interest in understanding how people change + The most common ways to gather data about age differences and changes 1) Cross-Sectional 2) Longitudinal 3) Time lag 4) Sequential

Measurement in Adult Development and Aging Research

+ Gerontologists usually use one of three approaches: observing systematically, using tasks to sample behavior, and self reports + Reliability - The ability of a measure to produce the same value when used repeatedly to measure the identical phenomenon over time - The extent to which it provides a consistent index of the behavior or topic of interest - E.g. a measure of memory is reliable to the extent that it fives a consistent estimate of performance each time you administer it + Validity - The extent to which it measures what researchers think it measures - E.g. a measure of memory is valid only it if can be shown to actually measure memory - often established by showing that the measure in question is closely related to another measure known to be valid

Perspectives on Adult Development and Aging

+ Gerontology - the study of aging from maturity through old age + Ageism - a form of discrimination against older adults based on their age: assumption that chronological age is the main determinant of human characteristics and that on age is better than another + the baby-boom generation, consisting of people born between 1946 and 1964, are on average the healthiest and most active generation to begin reaching old age in history

How do the cognitive processing demands associated with a particular scenario influence age differences in how social judgments are made?

+ Greater demands (time, memory, complexity) lead us to make snap judgments. + Therefore, Older adults are more likely to rely on those snap judgments (heuristics) and fail to re-evaluate using all available information. + Perhaps they are even less likely to look for disconfirming evidence than younger adults?

Langer and Colleagues Studies: What do they say about the importance of congruence for older adults?

+ Group 1: Residents told staff were there to do everything the resident needed or wanted done. Group 2: Residents told staff were simply there to assist. - Group 2 residents showed greater well-being later, and even a lower mortality rate.

Medication Side Effects and Interactions

+ Have the highest rate of aversive drug effects + Polypharmacy: the use of multiple medications - Potentially dangerous because many drugs do not interact well, and may create secondary medical problems - May produce symptoms that appear to be caused by other diseases

Competence and Environmental Press (C/EP)

+ How a theory incorporates elements of the biopsychosocial model into the person environment relation + Competence: the upper limit of a persons ability to function in five domains; the maximum capability a person has for functioning in the domains of physical health, sensory perceptual skills, motor skills, cognitive skills, and ego-strength (self-efficacy) + Environmental Press: the physical, interpersonal or social demands that environments put on people + Lawton and Nahemow's model establishes poiints of balance between the two, called adaptation levels. One implication of the model is the less competent a person is, the more impact the environment has + people can show proactivity (doing something to exert control over their lives) or docility (letting the situation determine their lives) + Both competence and environmental press change as peoples move through the life span + The demands put on you by the environment changes as you age, + The competence environmental press framework reflects the lifecycle factor as well + Adaptation Level: - The area where press level is average for a particular level of competence - This is where behaviour and affect are normal + Zone of Maximum Performance Potential - Slight INCREASES in press tend to improve performance + Zone of Maximum Comfort - Slight decreases in press in which people are able to live happily without worry about environmental demands **People with little competence can withstand less of a change in press than someone with more competence + Combinations of competence and environmental press that fall within either of these two zones result in adaptive behaviour and positive emotion that translate into high quality of life + As a person moves away from these areas, behavior becomes increasingly maladaptive - These can result from several different combinations and for different reasons - Ex: too many environmental demands on a person with low competence + Each person has potential of being happily adapted to some living situations, but not all + Whether people function well depends on if what they are able to do fits what the environment forces them to do + People respond with changes in their combinations of environmental press and competence is two basic ways 1) Proactivity: people choose new behaviors to meet new desires or needs and exert control over their lives (change behaviors) 2) Docility: when people allow the situation to dictate the options they have and have little control (fail to exert contol over life) + Proactivity is more likely in people with HIGH competence and docility in people with LOW (people with more competence are likely to be more proactive) ** E.g. Response to INCREASE Environmental Press, like loss of a spouse. Learn what the spouse had been doing, like cooking, laundry, cleaning, finances, etc. + The model accounts for why people choose the activities they do, how well people adhere to medication regiments, and how they adapt to changing housing needs over time + The Less competence a person is the greater the impact of environmental factors + To the extent people experience declines in health, they are less able to cope with environmental demands - Important because many older adults choose to live at home + Personal competence predicts how well older adults adapt after being discharged from a hospital or when provided with assistance technology + The model has been the basis for evaluating and optimizing living situations with people that have severe cognitive impairments - Must identify the right level of environmental support based on level of competence

How can the unconscious influence of stereotypes be measured?

+ Implicit Association (or Attitude) Test - Respond Young or Old to faces. (i.e. Decide whether faces are young or old.) - Respond Pleasant or Unpleasant to words or scene pictures. - Pair Pleasant with Young (right hand) and Unpleasant with Old (left hand). - Pair Pleasant with Old (right hand) and Unpleasant with Young (left hand). + If implicit negative attitude is present, then Pleasant - Old should be slower than Unpleasant - Young because the ideas in the former case are incompatible.

Population Trends in the United States

+ In 2000 there were many more people between 30 and 40 than any other age group + Projections for 2025 show that this will change, as more people will live into their 80s, 90s, + by 2050, the shape of the distribution will be more like a beehive, as more people continue to live into their 80s, 90s, and 100s + The biggest change by 2100 will be the number of older men + The baby boomers will be an economic and political force + Support systems and medical care will become the largest expenditures in the federal and states budgets + the strain on health and social services will be exacerbate because the most rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population is over age 85.

How Should People Communicate with Nursing Home Residents?

+ Inappropriate speech to older adults is based on stereotypes of dependence and lack of abilities + patronizing and infantilizing speech are examples of demeaning speech, that are rated negatively by older adults + the communication enhancement model has been proposed as a framework for appropriate exchange + this model is based on a health promotion model that seeks opportunities for health care providers to optimize outcomes for older adults through more appropriate effective commmunication

Correlational Design

+ Investigators examine relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world + Usually measure two variables and see how they relate + Measured by competing a correlation coefficient, r, ranging from -1.00 to 1.00 - When r = 0, then they are unrelated - When r > 0, then they are positively related - When r < 0, the variables are inversely related + Correlation does not mean causation + But provides information about the strength of a relationship + do not give definitive information about cause-and-effect relations; for example, the correlation between study time and the number of groceries remembered does not mean that one variable caused the other

What cohort differences do we see in intelligence?

+ Many abilities are increasing. + Only word fluency and numerical facility seem to be declining. **Flynn effect. What's causing it?

Representative Sampling

+ Researchers usually interested in broad groups of people called populations + Most only include a subset of the population - a sample + Researchers must be careful to ensure that their sample is truly representative of a population of interest + Must be careful not to assume that findings from one group apply to another

Prospective Memory

+ Involves remembering to remember something in the future, such as an action or event - e.g., I have to remember to go to a meeting at 12:30 today. - An older adult may have to remember to take a pill at bedtime + The process starts with the intention to remember something in the future, and depends critically on monitoring bothevent and times cues + three types of task - In event-based tasks, an action is to be performed when a certain external event happens; "I have to remember to stop by the store to get milk when I drive home." - A time-based task involves performing an action after a fixed amount of time; "I have to remember to check the turkey in 10 minutes." ** Time-based tasks show more age differences as long as people used self-generated strategies to remember, as they tend to decline with age - Habitual: "I have to take my medicine in the morning, at dinner, and at bedtime." o The cues that typically accompany event-based tasks helped reduce or eliminate age differences Autobiographical memory: o Involves remembering information and events from our own life (e.g., I remember a cold windy day that I rode my horse named "Skinny Jimmy".) - More autobiographical memories are remembered for events in our 20's and 30's than other times of our lives - As we age, our autobiographical memories become less accurate, and tend to get blended together. - aoutobiographical meories increases fastest during young adulthood (ages 18-25) especially those involving social interaction - Even "flashbulb" memories are not as accurate as we may think o Primarily a form of episodic memory - can also involve semantic memory o The episodic component of this memory is the recollection of temporal and spatial events from one's past o The semantic component consists of knowledge and facts of one's past without having to remember exactly what or when things occurred o Flashbulb memories: memories for personally traumatic or unexpected events o For both younger and older adults, when asked to remember life events, vivid memories experienced earlier in life (between 10-30 years) are reported more often than those occurring during middle adulthood (between 30-50 years)

Systematic Observation

+ Involves watching people and carefully recording what they say or do + Two forms + In naturalistic observation, people are observed as they behave spontaneously in some real life situation + Structured observations, differ in that the researcher rates a setting that is particularly likely to elicit the behavior of interest, usually for behaviors that are hard to study in the natural environment

Working Memory

+ Is the active processes and structures involved in holding information in mind and simultaneously using that information, sometimes in conjunction with incoming information, to solve a problem, male a decision, or learn new information + It plays an active, critical, and central role in encoding, storage, and retrieval + Working memory has a relatively small capacity + Rehearsal: is the process that information is held in working memory, either by repeating items over and over or by making meaningful connections between the information in working memory and information already known + There is a significant age related decline in working memory + Age-related decline in spatial working memory tends to be greater than that in verbal working memory - there is decline in both though + Working memory ability declines with age because alertness at different times of the day, order of the task, and task interference as well as the idea that older adults have more trouble juggling all of the element once they are accessed

Do stereotypes of aging actually result in lower cognitive performance by older adults?

+ It seems to in some situations. + Levy (1996) found that priming the idea of "old" in Older adults led to worse memory performance. + Rahhal, Hasher, & Colombe (2001) found that instructions mattered. - Older adults did worse when told they would be performing a memory test than when told they were going to learn new information.

Developmental Changes in How Medications Work

+ Knowing the developmental changes in absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of medication + Absorption - The time needed for medications to enter the bloodstream - For oral medication, it is the time it takes to go from stomach to small intestine - Transfer may take longer in older adults resulting in too little or too much absorption - Once in the small intestine, absorption does not appear to be different than with younger adults + How well it is distributed in the blood stream depends on adequacy of cardiovascular system - As we grow older more portion of the drug remain free, than the portion that bind with plasma protein, this means that toxic levels can build up more easily - Drugs that are soluble in water or fat tissue can build up more easily + Drug Metabolism: - getting rid of medications in the bloodstream is partly the job of the liver - Evidence that this is slower in older adults, meaning drugs stay longer + Drug Excretion - Occurs mainly through the kidneys in the urine, although some elimination occurs though feces, sweat and saliva - Changes in kidney function with age result in lower total body water content - means drugs are not excreted as quickly + Dosage of a drug for older adults may be different + Most cases, recommend using 1/3 or ½ usual adult dosage + Also higher rate of side effects + Dosage strategy: "start low and go slow"

How is the pattern of age differences in semantic memory different than that for episodic memory?

+ Larger diffs for episodic memory. Consistent with idea that OAs have problems with controlled processing. + EM declines dramatically after 60 or so, but SM begins decline later, and is much less pronounced. + Larger age differences are seen when a recall test is given than when a recognition test is given. - This seems to be due to difficulties with self-initiated retrieval

Who is Likely to Live in Nursing Homes?

+ Latineo American and Asian residents increased roughly 55% each between 1999 and 2008, and African American residents increased nearly 11% percent, meanwhile; European American residents declined to 10% + Average resident has significant mental and physical problems + Main reason for placing almost 80% of residents is significant health problems + 80% have mobility problems, and more than 1/3 have mobility, eating and incontinence issues + between 30 and 50% show signs of clinical depression + Often do not see it as an option until all other avenues have been explored, which may be why there is such high numbers of truly impaired people + Placement decisions are often made quickly in reaction to a crisis + Older White women over the Age of 75 + People with cognitive impairment, problems with mobility, and/or incontinence + no spouse, children, or siblings nearby + recently discharged from a hospital

Stress and Coping Framework

+ Lazarus and Folkmans cognitive theory of stress in coping (chapter 4) to understand older persons interaction with environment + People evaluate situations to assess their potential threat value, and establish a range of coping responses they have at their disposal for avoiding harmful situations + Outcomes of coping are positive or negative depending on many contextual factors + Schooled showed the presence of social support systems affect the likelihood that situations would be defined as threatening - Applied to certified nurse aides (CNA)

Adherence to Medication Regimes

+ Likelihood of adverse drug reactions INCREASES as the number of medications INCREASES + Medication adherence: taking medication correctly - becomes less likely the more drugs a person takes and the more complicated regimes are + The oldest old are at most risk + Best to keep amount of medications low, and the lowest effective dosage should be used

What is social cognition?

+ Mental processes involved in making decisions and judgments concerning how we perceive and interact with others. + Why is it important? - We are social animals, so it would be beneficial to know about changes in these types of processes. - We might adjust the way we interact with older adults, and be careful about the type of information we present about others and ourselves. - Changes in cognition could result in difficulty recognizing cues like body language and facial expressions, which could result in Older adults having trouble with social situations, or just in experiencing them differently.

Integrating Findings from Different Studies

+ Meta-Analysis - Allows researchers to synthesize the results of many studies to estimate relations Between variables - Find all studies published on a topic over a substantial period of time

Conducting Research Ethically

+ Minimize risks to research participants + Describe the research to potential participants so they can determine whether they wish to participate + Avoid deception; if the participants must be deceived, provide a thorough explanation of the true nature of the experiment as soon as possible + Results should be anonymous or confidential

What kind of age differences do we find in episodic memory? In other words, what kinds of mistakes are made, are there differences in strategy use, etc.?

+ More intrusions (irrelevant information recalled). + More repetition errors. + More omissions. + Do not use strategies as effectively or spontaneously

Special Care Units

+ Most residents have cognitive impairment, with the majority having dementia + Providing a supportive environment for people with moderate to severe dementia requires certain specialized design and intervention features - This need has resulted in development of special care units in many nursing homes + Provide a supportive and therapeutic set of programs that help the person function at the highest level possible + Staff receive specific training to work with persons with dementia + Best units have physical designed elements that take functional limitations into account + Most residents with cognitive impairments wear wrist or ankle bands that trigger alarms if they wander beyond a certain point + Also provide private dining area to minimize possible negative interactions between residents with dementia and those without + Must have the right level of environmental support at the time of placement, as well as the availability of additional levels of support when the persons competence declines + Memory aids should be built into the unit + Staff training includes aspects such as - Appropriate and effective communication techniques - Behavioural management techniques to address aggressive/aggregated behaviour - Appropriate techniques for assisting with personal health and hygiene that protect residents dignity - Methods for dealing with incontinence - Techniques for handling sexuality in persons with dementia - Controlling wandering - Supervising and assisting with eating - Interventions to address memory failure and disorientation - Assisting with mobility + Residents of special care units are younger, more behaviorally impaired, and less likely to be minority than general nursing home residents when both exist in the same facility + Residents tend to have lower hospitalization rates, were less likely to have serious other health issues, and family members who were satisfied with quality of care, compared to residence of non-special care units - The increased quality of care is more the result of a difference in philosophy of care

General Designs for Research

+ Must embed their measure in a research design that yields useful, relevant results + Gerontologists rely on primary designs in planning their work: 1) Experimental Studies 2) Correlational Studies 3) Case Studies

Common Chronic Conditions

+ Nearly ½ of adults in US have a chronic health condition + Diabetes Mellitus - Occurs when the pancreas produces insufficient insulin - Type 1: usually develops earlier in life and requires the use of insulin, "insulin dependent diabetes" - Type 2: develops in adulthood and is often effectively managed through diet - More common among older adults and minority groups - May result in serious complications (nerve damage, kidney disorders) - Increase change of stroke or atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease - Cannot be cured but can be managed + Cancer - Second leading cause of death in US - Risk increases with age - Death rates have been decreasing since 1990s - Some forms are caused by unhealthy lifestyles (lung, colorectal) - Smoking causes more preventable health conditions than any other lifestyle issue - Prostate is most common form for men, breast cancer for women - But lung cancer kills more men than prostate, and more women than breast - 5 year survival rates for these cancers also differ dramatically; 15% of patients with lung cancer are still living 5 years after their diagnosis - Part of the reason older people are at increased risk is the cumulative effect of poor health habits over a long period of time - Normative age related changes in immune system may also inhibit growth of tumors - Found genetic links - Treatment usually involves several major approaches used in combination: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation etc. + Incontinence - The loss of the ability to control the elimination of urine and feces on an occasional or consistent basis, is a source of great concern and embarrassment - Increases with age, and varies in ethnic groups and gender - In older adults, 20% women and 10% men - Much higher is a person have dementia, or living in nursing home - Europeans American women report higher rates than African or Latina - Rates for men do not vary across ethnic groups - Occurs most often for 4 reasons Urinary Inconsistency: the most common form Increases with age and varies across ethnic groups as a function of gender - among community dwelling older adults, roughly 20% of women and 10% of men have urinary incontinence -rates are HIGHER if the person has dementia and is lving in a nursing community (about 35%) or living in a nursing home (70%) * Stress incontinence: happens when pressure in the abdomen exceeds the ability to resist urinary flow * Urge incontinence: caused by a central nervous system problem after a stroke or UTI * Overflow incontinence: from improper contraction of the kidneys, causing the bladder to become over distended * Functional incontinence: when the urinary tract is intact but because of physical disability or cognitive impairment the person is unaware of the need to urinate - Can be treated with interventions, most effective being behavioral interventions

Neuroimaging Techniques

+ Neuroimaging: a set of techniques in which pictures of the brain are taken in various ways to provide understanding of both normal and abnormal cognitive aging + Allows us to see inside the brain to examine the various structures + Help figure out which changes are normative and which ones are not + We need to know what a healthy brain looks like in different points in the human life span + Structural Neuroimaging - Provides highly detailed images of anatomical features in the brain - Includes X-rays, computerized tomography scans (CTs), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - What a specific brain structure looks like at a specific point in time - Effective at identifying such things as bone fractures, tumors + Functional Neuroimaging - Provides an indication of brain activity but not high anatomical detail - Includes single photon emissions computerized tomography (SPECT), positron emissions tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography, and near infrared spectroscopic imaging (NIRSI) - fMRI is the most commonly used technique in cognitive neuroscience researc, it focuses on the blood oxydation and flow of that occur in response to neural activity (imaging normal brain function) - Provides information about what parts of the brain are active when people are doing a specific task + Shown that age related brain changes are responsible for age related changes in performance

How "transferrable" is memory training?

+ Not very. + People of all ages have difficulty seeing how a technique can be applied to novel situations. + However, the same factors that maximize memory performance in younger adults also maximize performance in older adults. For example: - Using imagery and other mnemonics. - Self-reference effect. - Spaced learning. - Etc.

Decision Making

+ Note: there is a distinction between decision making (choices), reasoning (applying logic), & problem solving (achieving goals). + Older adults worse when the decision is novel and unfamiliar. + Older adults worse when decision is to be made under time constraints. + Older adults worse when decision involves great deal of working memory. + HOWEVER, older adults tend to make qualitatively equal decisions with less information when making real-world decisions, like whether to retire or what car to buy. *** This could be due to expertise, as experts use less information to make decisions (not always good). + Older adults use less optimal strategies when deciding what options to select to best meet their needs + When decision making involves a high degree of working memory capacity older adults do not perform as well Older adults search for less information in order to arrive at a decision, tend to avoid risk, and rely on easily accessible information When decision making taps into relevant experience or knowledge, older adults tend to be just as effective or better in making decisions as younger adults Experience and knowledge tend to make older adults less susceptible to irrational biases in their decision making compared to young adults Older adults focus more on positive information when making a health decision

How do personal goals act as a source of motivation and guide our behavior? How do these personal goals tend to change as we grow older? What theory accounts for this change?

+ Obviously, we will behave in a way that increases the likelihood of achieving goals. + But, the goals themselves change, especially with age. E.g. declines in physical ability change goals. + Selective optimization and compensation. - Our abilities (resources) change with age. - We evaluate the status of those abilities, and whether they are sufficient for achieving goals. - Our goals change as our abilities change. + As we age, we focus more on maintaining health and positive emotional experiences.

Social Situations and Social Competence: Collaborative Cognition

+ Occurs when two or more people work together to solve a cognitive task + Older Adults can reduce age differences in memory by working together, using one another's ideas as cues. + It enhances older adults performance on a variety of memory and problem solving tasks Serves as an important adaptive function for older adults Two heads are better than one Improves cognitive performance Older married couples produce more statements resulting from a shared discussion, and provide richer descriptions when working together Positive outcomes with problem solving when they perceive deficiencies in their own functioning but prefer to work along when feel competent in an area Collaborating with others in recollection helps facilitate memory in older adults

Characteristics of Nursing Homes

+ One way of evaluating them is applying the competence-environmental press model + The goal is to find the optimal level of environmental support for people who have relatively low levels of competence + Most important things to consider when selection are: - Quality of life for residents (e.g. well groomed, food is tasty, rooms are comfortable) - Quality of care (e.g. if staff respond quickly, if family is involved in decisions) - Safety (e.g. enough staff, hallways are open) + Skilled nursing care is usually available only for short time following hospitalization, whereas custodial care may be an option for a much longer period + Nursing homes that only take Medicaid residents may offer longer term but less intensive care levels + Nursing homes without Medicaid might force residents out when funds run out + Ensure the facility and administrator are fully licensed, and a full array of staff training on topics like neglect, how to deal with difficult residents, and how to report complaints + Ensure the residents care plan is put together by a team of professionals, and residents have choices and can exert some control over routines and care + The best nursing homes use "person-centered care" approach to policies, especially when working with people with cognitive impairments - Based on promoting residents well being though increasing their perceived level of personal control and treating them with respect - Focus on on the individual, and does not use one size fits all approach - Involves a team who knows and cares about the individual - Method has shown major decreases in the need for certain medications, soft restraints, and number of residents who are incontinent + Residents who have higher perceived personal control show significant improvement in well being and activity level, and actually live longer + Feelings of self-efficacy are crucial to doing well and adjusting to life in a long-term care facility + Many nursing homes still use the traditional approach of rules, routines, and requirements person-centered care is considered a best practice in nursing homes

Managing Pain

+ Pain is one of the most common complaints of older adults + Different than in younger adults; it can indicate that something is wrong but also be responsible for depression, sleep disorders, impaired mobility etc. + 2 general pain management techniques: pharmacological and nonpharmacological + Pharmacological approached include nonnarcotic and narcotic medications - nonnarcotic are best for mild pain(ibuprofen), while narcotic are for sever pain (morphine) + Nonpharmacoligical pain control involves a variety of approaches - Deep and superficial stimulation of the skin through therapeutic touch, massage, vibration, heat - Electronic stimulation where pain is - Acupuncture, distraction techniques, relaxation, meditation, hypnosis + Important to understand pain is not a necessary part of growing older

Decision-Making Capacity and Individual Choices

+ Patient Self Determination Act (PSDA): a law that mandates that all facilities receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds comply with 5 requirements regarding advance care kenning, referred to as advance directives 1) Provide written information to people at time of admission about their right to make medical treatment decisions and to formulate advance directives (i.e. decisions about life-sustaining treatments and who makes decisions if they are incapacitated) 2) Maintain written policies and procures regarding advanced directives 3) Documenting the completion of them in persons medical chart 4) Complying with state law regarding the implementation of advance directives 5) Providing staff and community education about advanced directives + Assessing a persons capacity to make medical decisions is a challenge for medical ethics - Many studies show the theory does not hold up well in practice - Most people see such planning as a family process - They engage in informal advance care planning, preferring to allow family members to make decisions for them when the need arises and to give them leeway in interpreting advance directives even when they exist - Thus it is unlikely a person being admitted will have a complete formal advance directive + New resident is unlikely to understand the information presented as mandated by the PSDA + If they are cognitively impaired, they may be thought to be unable to act on their own behalf in communication treatment preferences and end of life wished + No uniform approach to determining residents cognitive competence exists + Lack of agreement between residents and families also caries with ethnicity + Resolving the problem involves using the various approaches considered for determining person-environment interactions, combined with clinical assessment

Congruence Model

+ People look for environments that fit their abilities and needs: The better the congruence, the better the well-being. - e.g. An OA might move into an assisted living facility after the loss of a spouse, or illness.

Self-Reports

+ People's answer to questions about the topic of interest + Written report is a questionnaire, verbal report is an interview + Sometimes may not be good measures of peoples behavior

Neural Plasticity and the Aging Brain

+ Plasticity: involves the changes in the structure and function of the brain as the result of interaction between the brain and the environment + Plasticity provides a way to understand compensatory changes in both the more observable behavior and less observable reorganization of neural circuitry in the brain + Older adults are able to improve cognitive ability in memory tasks through tailored strategy training beyond the level of untrained younger adults, this is highly task specific, and the ability level gains are very narrow in focus + Basic cognitive processes affected by aging can indeed be improved through training + Neural Stem Cells: are cells that persist in the adult brain and can generate new neurons throughout the life span

Lazarus and Folkman describe 3 types of appraisals of stress

+ Primary appraisal + Secondary Appraisal + Reappraisal

Describe the Bargh et al. (1996) study that demonstrated the influence of implicit age-based stereotypes on behavior.

+ Prime the idea of "old" and then see how fast YA subjects walk down the hall. + Those primed with "old" walked more slowly than those not primed with "old". +This is a demonstration of implicit stereotyping, or the idea that stereotypes are automatically and unconsciously activated.

Sequential Designs

+ Represent different combinations of cross-sectional or longitudinal studies + Cross - sequential design consists of two or more cross sectional studies conducted at two or more times of measurement + Longitudinal sequential design consists of two or more longitudinal designs that represent two or more cohorts + Are more powerful and provide the richest source of information + Not used often because they are costly

What is meant by processing speed? Describe the pattern of age-differences in processing speed that are found across different types of tasks.

+ Processing speed refers to how quickly a person can process information. + We don't tend to see large age differences on sensorimotor tasks (i.e. pressing a button as soon as you see something). + We do see age differences on tasks that require a decision, and age differences increase as the complexity of the task increases. + age differences are larger on explicit memory tasks + We also see larger age differences on spatial tasks than on verbal tasks. + We see larger age differences on tasks that rely on controlled processing than those that rely on automatic processing.

Stress as a Physiological State

+ Prolonged exposure to stress results in damaging influences from the sympathetic nervous system (controls heart rate, blood flow, perspiration, respiration) and a weakening of the immune system + These effects have a direct causative effect on susceptibility to a wide range of diseases + Gender differences in stress responses have also been documented - When stressed, men opt for a fight or flight response where women go for a tend and befriend approach - Difference may be due to hormone Oxycontin - In MEN, performance improves only for competition recognition, where WOMEN it improves for kinship recognition

The Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT)

+ Proposes that intelligence comes from a distributed and integrated network of neurons in the parietal and frontal areas of the brain + In general, P-FIT accounts for individual differences in intelligence as having their origins in individual differences in brain structure and function + research now shows that the prefrontal cortex, along with the parietal lobe (an area of the brain at the top of the head), plays an important role in general intellectual abilities +the limbic system and amygdala, influence how we process emotional content

Assisted Living

+ Provides assistance with some ADL's and IADL's but person is still fairly independent + Are housing options for older adults that provide a supportive living arrangement for people needing assistance with personal care (such as bathing or raking medications) but who are not so impaired physically or cognitively that they need 24 hour care + Ideal assisted living situation has 3 essential attributes 1) The physical environment where a person lives is designed to be as much like a single family house as possible - That way, the setting has a residential appearance, a small scale, and personal privacy that includes at a minimum a private room and a full bath that is not shared with other residents - Indoor and outdoor access 2) The philosophy of care at an ideal assisted living facility emphasises personal control, choice, dignity and autonomy, and promotes a preferred lifestyle residents and their families consider to be abnormal quality of life - Residents exert control over lives, schedules, and dwellings 3) Should meet residents routine services and special needs - Levels of support are not meant to deal with high level, intensive nursing or other complex needs - Transportation, socialization, and daily checks + There are serious gaps in service and regulation among assisted living facilities + A more cost effective approach than long term care facilities for those older adults who cannot live independently + Residents are independent apartments or similar units + Usually include monitoring and management of health care, assistance with activities of daily living, housekeeping, reminders for medication, recreation and entertainment, transportation and security + Ranges between $25000-50000 + Medicare does not pay for either living costs or any of the services provided, but sometimes they may pay for services under certain circumstances + Residents well being is related to whether the decision to live there was under their control and to the quality of relationships formed with co-residence + One of the main future challenges will be the blurring of congregate (independent) living, assisted living, and long term care facilities into hybrids of these + The cost of assisted living, is another challenge, that is already out of reach for many +Different Housing Options that exist for older adults who experience change in competence: - Modify the home (e.g. build a ramp.) - Adult Day Care: 1. Social activities, meals, recreation 2. Health care and Therapy 3. Special Care (Dementia). Most are non-profit

How Does Disability in Older Adults Differ Globally

+ Rates of disabilities are higher in low income countries, and among women + Early detection and treatment of chronic disease can LOWER these rates + Important different is access to health care

Practical problem solving:

+ Refers to solving problems that one is likely to encounter in the real-world, rather than in an artificial laboratory setting. + The same factors that influence laboratory performance (WM, speed, reasoning, etc.) influence practical problem solving, but experience probably plays a greater role in practical problem solving. + The context of the problem seems to matter to older adults more than younger adults. - e.g. resolving argument between co-workers vs. family members. + People of different ages tend to define (or identify) everyday problems differently. + Does this really change with age, or is it a cohort difference? - If it is a cohort difference, might future generations of older adults be at a disadvantage if they are more focused on competence goals? + Observed tasks of daily living (OTDL - medication use, telephone use, financial management) o OTDL directly influenced by Age Fluid intelligence Crystallized intelligence o OTDL indirectly influenced by Perceptual speed Memory Several aspects of health + Emotionality: Consider the Blanchard-Fields study. - 3 levels of emotionality. - Solutions to problems classified as one of 4 types. *** Problem focused action: deal directly with problem. *** Cognitive analysis: try to think through the problem to reach optimal solution. *** Passive dependent: avoid the situation all together. *** Avoidant thinking, denial: change the meaning of the situation. =+ RESULTS: Less Problem Focused Action and Cognitive Analysis as emotionality increased. More Passive Dependent and Avoidant Thinking for OAs.

Processing Resources

+ Refers to the amount of attention one has to apply to a particular situation + Many theorists and researchers believe with increasing age comes a decline in the amount of cognitive "energy" one deploys on a task + The idea is that there is only so much of this processing resource to go around, and older adults have less of it than younger adults. + Problem with theory is that the "processing resource" is poorly defined and some forms suffer from circular logic. + Circularity of logic: We say that there are limited resources because we can't do two things at once very well. But, we say that the fact that we can't do two things at once very well is evidence that we have limited resources. + Inhibitory Loss: o One hypothesis is older adults have reduced processing resources because they have difficulty inhibiting the processing of irrelevant information - Evidence: When asked to divide attention between irrelevant information and relevant information, young adults can focus on the relevant information better than older adults. o The oldest-old have more task-irrelevant thoughts during processing and have trouble keeping them out of their mind o Kimbler and colleagues showed emotionally supportive messages reduce distracting thoughts and improve performance on everyday tasks for middle-aged and older adults o When information that was initially distracting but later becomes relevant, older adults performed better than younger adults o Under certain conditions inhibitory loss can be a hindrance, and in others it can be helpful Attentional Resources: - Views attention as a resource, and supposedly older adults have less of it than young adults. - Evidence: Older adults do more poorly on some tasks that require them to divide attention. o Divided attention: concerns how well people perform multiple tasks simultaneously; doing two or more things at a time - older adults are slower to switch between tasks o Age differences observed are due to older adults' difficulties with the individual tasks and not to spreading their attention across them per se o Older adults are able to multitask but perform each task more slowly than younger adults o Older adults encounter difficulties dividing their attention when a task becomes more complex o Age differences can be minimized if older adults are given training o Older adults focus on the task most important to them; but they are slower to focus on something (selective attention) o Younger adults optimized their memory performance - Older adults have more difficulty on vigilance tasks (or sustained attention).

Case Studies

+ Researchers study a single individual in great detail + Useful when wanting to investigate a rare phenomenon + Primary limitation is figuring out if the information from one person can be generalized to others

What Causes Functional Limitations and Disability in Older Adults

+ Smoking, heavy drinking, inactivity, depression, isolation and poor perceived health somewhat predictive of who would become disabled in some way + Lack of physical activity is a powerful predictor of later disability and with HIGHER rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity, all of which result in HIGHER rates of disability and premature death

How does the accessibility of social knowledge differ between young and old adults?

+ Social judgments depend on the accessibility of social knowledge. + This knowledge should be easily accessible. - Accessibility depends on the strength of the info stored in memory. *** Age differences are found in the accessibility of information: OAs will rely on easily accessible information (Processing Resources?). - Accessibility also depends on whether source judgment is required. *** Remember, older adults have difficulty with source judgments. + Perhaps this is why OAs are more likely to be guided by stereotypes. - Stereotypes are heuristics - quickly accessible "rules of thumb".

Describe Baddeley's WM model (I'm not sure this model is described in your book).

+ The Model: System that has 4 basic components. - Phonological loop: Verbal code - Visuospatial sketchpad: Visual code (spatial may be distinct). - Central executive: Processes associated with switching and/or dividing attention between the different slave systems. - Episodic buffer: Links pre-existing knowledge with contents of WM. + Older adults do not perform as well as younger adults, especially when: - The task is spatial. - The task requires one to manipulate the contents of memory. + Conversely, age differences are smaller when: - The task is verbal. - There is little or no requirement to manipulate the contents of memory.

How is Decision making Capacity Assesed?

+ The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) requires people to complete advance directives when admitted to a health care facility + A major ethical issue concerns how to communicate this information to people with cognitive impairment in nursing homes

How is the Brain Organized?

+ The brain is made up of cells called neurons + Dendrites: the key structural features of the neuron, which act like antennas to receive signals from other nearby neurons, the axon + The axon which is part of the neuron containing the neuronfibers, which are the structures that carry information inside the neuron from the dendrites to the terminal branches, which are the end points of the neuron + In order for information to be passed from on neuron to another, the terminal branches release chemicals called neurotransmitters, that travel across the space between neurons, called the synapse, where they are received by the dendrites of the next neuron + Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure of the brain + Cerebral Cortex - The outermost part of the brain - Consists of two hemispheres (left and right) that are connected by a thick bundle of neurons called the corpus collosum + Prefrontal and Frontal Cortex - Intimately involves in higher order executive functions - Includes; ability to make and carry out plans, switch between tasks, maintain attention and focus, and connects with other key brain structures that are involves with emotions + Cerebellum - At the back of the brain - Controls equilibrium and the coordination of fine motor movements, and may be involves in some cognitive functions + Hippocampus - Located in the middle of the brain - Key structure associated with memory + Limbic System - A set of brain structures involved with emotion, motivation, and long term memory - Most important components include the amygdala and hippocampus

Home Modification

+ The competence environmental press model provides two options for people who experience difficulties dealing with everyday tasks - People can increase their competency and develop better or new skills - People can lower the environmental press by modifying the environment to make the task easier + The most frequent solution involves modifying ones home (i.e. changing the environment) in order to create a new optimal balance or better fit between competence and environmental press + Many strategies, from minor structural changes like assistive devices, to more extensive modifications like making home fully accessible by wheelchair + Some options may be unaffordable + Home modifications done to address difficulties with accomplishing ADLs typically reduce disability related outcomes + Auxiliary dwelling unit ( ADU ) is a portable hospital room that is a separate dwelling place next to a family's main dwelling to give an older relative privacy and proximity to family - Colloquially known as granny pods, the dwelling contains a number of devices; can have a number of "smart" devices that do everything from serving as a virtual companion - They can be as temporary or permanent as needed - Provide independence and support for aging in place

Personal Control

+ The extent to which you believe you have control over your life and your ability to achieve goals. The degree one believes ones performance in a situation depends on something that one personally does - High sense of personal control - belief that performance is up to you - Low sense of personal control - performance is under influence of forces other than your own Guides behaviour and relates to well being

Does negativity bias in impression formation seem to be in opposition to anything else you know about age differences in how emotional information is processed?

+ The fact that Older Adultss are more influenced by negative information than positive information is referred to as the negativity bias in impression formation. - But, this seems to be in opposition to the positivity effect. Not sure why. + Hess study: Condition 1 - Positive info, then negative info. Condition 2 - Negative info, then positive info. OAs were more willing to downgrade their opinion of someone (Condition 1) than to upgrade their opinion. + NOTE: The authors propose that the negativity bias suggests that older adults have a reduced ability to alter initial impressions. - But, look at the data. Really the same pattern; neither older adult nor younger adult are all that willing to change an initially negative opinion. And, older adult are altering impression MORE that younger adults when new negative information is presented. That is the negativity bias.

Diversity of Older Adults in the United States

+ The number of older adults among ethnic minority groups is increasing faster than among European Americans + Future adults will be more educated than the past, and they tend to live longer + As the number of ethnic minority older adults increases, an important emerging issue will be the differences between individualism and collectivism + Individualism is much more focused on the person, while collectivism includes the broader family or network of friends + in 2010, a little more than half of the people over 65 have only a high school diploma or some college, and about 25% have a bachelor's degree or higher + by 2030 it is estimated that 85% will have a high school diploma and 75% will have a college degree

Population Trends Around the World

+ The number of older adults is increasing dramatically in nearly all areas of the world + The oldest area of the world is Europe, and the youngest is Africa + Economically powerful countries around the world (like China), are trying to cope with increased numbers of older adults that strain the country's resources + Because of Chinas 1 child policy there will be way more older adults than those under 15 + The economic impact will be significant for China + In general the aging of the worlds workforce and population in general will have significant effects on the world economy + Also explosive increase of older adults in developing countries + Economic conditions in different countries have a powerful effect on aging + Poverty is related to the odds of living a long life, less likely to live long - On reason some countries are aging is because of a significantly lower birth rate - Creates of problem of how their economies will handle a shrinking supply of workers + In contrast, increase in older adults of the rest of the world presents problems of financing and health care

Theories of Brain-Behaviour Changes Across Adulthood

+ The underlying brain changes are not overly specific to a narrow set of circumstances + Additional age related neural activation may be functional and adaptive for optimal performance as people grow older + A number of models have been used to explain these findings: the HAROLD, the CRUNCH, and STAC model + The HAROLD model - Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older adults Explains the empirical findings of reduces lateralization in prefrontal lobe activity in older adults (that is, the reduced ability of older adults to separate cognitive processing in different parts of the prefrontal cortex) - Suggests that the function of the reduced lateralization is compensatory in nature, that is, additional neural units are being recruited and used to increase attentional resources, processing speed, or inhibitory control + The CRUNCH model - Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis - Describes how the aging brain adapts to neurological decline by recruiting additional neural circuits (in comparison to younger adults) to perform tasks adequately - Incorporates bilaterality of activation, but suggests this is not the only form of compensation - Two main mechanisms are suggested that the older brain uses to perform tasks: more of the same and supplementary processes - More of the same means that when task demands are increased more activation can be found in the same brain region that is activated for processing easier tasks - in older adults additional neuronal circuits are recruited earlier - Supplementary processes take place when different brain regions are activated to compensate for lacking or insufficient processing resources + The STAC model - Scaffolding Theory of Cognitive Aging - Based on the idea that age related changes in ones ability to function reflect a life long process of compensating for cognitive decline by recruiting additional brain areas - The increase in frontal activity may be a response to decreased efficiency of neural processing in the perceptual areas of the brain - Older adults have trouble suppressing the default network of the brain, resulting in poorer performance on cognitive tasks - Default network of the brain - refers to regions of the brain that are most active when one is at rest - Older adults may fail to shift from a resting state to a more active state - Model suggests that older adults continue to perform at high levels because they rely on a back up neural path way - Older adults performance can be understood in terms of factors that impact decline and those that impact compensation - Without scaffolding, performance would have been worse because older adults would have to rely on the more focal areas

The Demographics of Aging

+ There have never been as many older adults as there is now + Health care improved, and baby boomers began reaching 65

Culture and Ethnicity

+ They jointly provide status, social settings, living conditions and personal experiences for people of all ages, and they influence and are influenced by biological, psychological and life cycle developmental forces + Culture: - Shared basic value orientations, norms, beliefs, and customary habits and ways of - Living - Culture provides the basic worldview of a society in that it gives the basic - Explanations about the meanings and goals of everyday life - Important in gerontology because how people define person, age and life courses varies - Across cultures + Ethnicity - An individual and collective sense of identity based on historical and cultural group membership and related behaviors and beliefs - Have both solid and fluid properties, reflecting the fact that there are both unchanging and situation specific aspects to ethnic identity • Both culture and ethnicity are key dimensions along which adults vary • But we know little about how if effects how people experience old age

What Age Related Changes Occur in Brain Structures

+ Thinning and shrinkage in volume and density, and declining health of white matter or WMH + White Matter: neurons that are covered by myelin that serve to transmit information from one part of the cerebral cortex to another or from the cerebral cortex to other parts of the brain + White Matter Hyperintensities (WMH): are determined by the observation of high signal intensity or a bright spotty appearance on images, which indicate brain pathologies such as neural atrophy + One important change is that considerable shrinkage occurs in the brain by late life - Prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum show profound shrinkage - Areas related to sensory functions, show little + Diffusion Tenso Imaging (DTI): neuroimaging method that assesses the rate and direction that water diffuses through white matter + DTI examining WHM have demonstrated that deterioration of white matter may represent a cause of increased prefrontal dysfunction in older adults + WHM are linked to cerebrovascular disease

Consider the implications of cognitive impairment with respect to involving older adults in decisions about the care they receive.

+ Those with cognitive impairment will likely have difficulty making decisions about their care. ** It can be difficult to tell when they become incapable of making informed decisions.

Aging and the Stress and Coping Paradigm

+ Two important age related differences in stress and coping: the sources of stress and coping strategy + Younger adults and those with lower levels of education and income report HIGHER stress than older adults with higher education and income + Age differences in coping strategies across life span are consistent - Older adults are less likely to use active coping strategies, and more likely to use past experience, emotion focused and religious strategies

Nutrition and Brain Aging

+ Two patterns associated with better cognitive functioning and greater brain volume: one higher in blood plasma levels of vitamins B, C, D, E and another high in blood plasma levels of omega 3 fatty acids + High trans fat associated with less favorable cognitive function and less total cerebral brain volume

Gender Differences in Average Longevity

+ Women's is about 5 years more than men's at birth, narrowing to roughly 1 year by age 85 - Typical of industrialized countries but not of developing + Death in childbirth still partially explains the lack of a female advantage in developing countries today + Another different in some countries results from the infanticide of baby girls + Difference in men and women may be also because of lifestyle, improved health care, greater susceptibility in men of contracting certain fatal diseases + Others argue that it is due to biological explanations - Women have two X chromosomes, men have higher metabolic rate, women have higher brain to body weight ratio, women have lower testosterone levels + men's rates of dying from the top 15 causes of death are significantly higher than women's at nearly every age, and men are also more susceptible to infectious diseases + older men who survive beyond age 90 are the hardiest segment of their birth cohort in terms of performance on cognitive tests + between ages 65 and 89, women score higher on cognitive tests; beyond age 90 men do much better

Communicating with Residents

+ Uneasiness of communication often results in people relying on stereotypes of older adults, and results in inappropriate communication styles + Patronizing Speech: inappropriate speech to older adults that is based on stereotyped of incompetence and dependence - Described as a general 'communication predicament' of older adults - Conveys a sense of declining abilities, loss of control and self esteem, and withdrawal - Increased volume, higher pitch, repetitions, simple words + Infantilization/ elderspeak: secondary baby talk, also involves the unwarranted use of a persons first name, terms of endearment, simplified expressions, short imperatives, and assumption that the recipient has no memory, and cajoling as a way to demand compliance - Community dwelling older adults Viewed extremely negatively by some older adults and were resentful of its intonation aspects as indicative of lack of respect - Nursing home residents were less harsh, giving support to the idea that being exposed to it lowers ones awareness of its demeaning qualities + Residents with dementia tend to be more resistive to care when they are targets of elderspeak + More experience in interacting with older adults is related to lower use of patronizing speech + There may be different types of elderspeak with different effects on the targets of the communications - Two types: right and wrong - Used towards women most often + Ryan et al. proposed the communication enhancement model as a framework for appropriate exchange - Based on a health promotion model that seeks opportunities for health care providers to optimize outcomes for older adults through more appropriate forms of communication - Communication must be based on recognizing individualized cues - Modifying communication to fit individual needs and situations - Appropriately assessing health and social problems + Combining communication enhancing model with person-centered care model provides we way for paraprofessional staff in facilities to communicate more effectively + Less positive perceptions of conversations in some casesin Korea, Japan, China, Philippians, than in some Western countries + Few suggestions for visiting with older adults (page 150)

Patterns of Medication Use

+ Until 1990s, clinical trails of medications were not required to include older adults, thus for most medication we do not know whether they are as effective for older adults + Because of normative changes in metabolism with age, the effective dosage of medication may change as people get older (may be at greater risk of overdose) + Medication is also very expensive + Figuring out which option is best is often a complex process

The Stress and Coping Paradigm

+ Views stress not as an environmental stimulus or as a response, but as the interaction of a thinking person + How we interpret the event is what matters, not the event itself + Stress is a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding their resources and endangering their well being

Defining Health and Illness

+ WHO (World of Health) defines health as: a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity + Illness: the presence of a physical or mental disease or impairment + Self ratings of health are very predictive of future health outcomes, and tend to be fairly stable over time - Men rated their health worse than women - In the oldest old, self rated health is a powerful predictor across cultures - Self rating does not reflect differences in SES background

Who pays for nursing home care?

+ We do. + $80, 000 per year and rising beyond inflation rate. + Medicare only pays for a few months. - 100 days (20 fully covered; 80 - copay $152/day). - Clock resets after 60 days of non-use. + Insurance doesn't pay much, and is prohibitively expensive anyway. + People must "spend down" until they are poor, so that Medicaid will pay. + Is this fair or moral?

How does emotion influence the processing of social information, and what theory has been proposed to describe how this changes with age?

+ We focus more on emotionally relevant outcomes as we grow older. + Socio-emotional selectivity theory. - Carstensen has found that OAs avoid the negative, and focus on the positive, whereas YAs do the opposite (positivity effect). - Note: this is contrary to the negativity bias we discussed earlier. MORE WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE.

What are two major issues that make a clinical assessment of memory difficult?

+ We need to know if the decline in memory is normal. + We need more types of memory tests, and more appropriate memory tests. ** Neuroimaging evidence is helping, but may not be useful in clinical settings.

Sampling Behavior with Tasks

+ When investigators can observe a behavior directly, another alternative is to create tasks that are thought to sample the behavior of interest + Convenient + Main question with this approach is validity: does the task provide a realistic sample of the behavior of interest

How does personal control change with age?

+ When we look at the domain (social, personal, societal) how perceived personal control changes with age depends. - Control over social (relationships) and personal (physical appearance) issues increase until about the 30's then decline. - Control over societal (climate change) issues decreases constantly with age. + There may be different types of control, which is addressed in the next question.

Wisdom

+ Wisdom is knowledge that can be applied to real-world decisions and problems, and that often seems to be characterized by experience-based insights, and seemingly novel (to the beneficiary of the wisdom) viewpoints. + Western cultures focus more on cognition, Eastern more on emotion. + It doesn't really change with age. Instead it has more to do with individual differences in life experience and intelligence. - Although, obviously, most older adults have a larger variety of experiences than younger adults. + Baltes and colleagues describe 4 characteristics of wisdom: o Wisdom deals with important or difficult matters of life and the human condition o Wisdom is truly "superior" knowledge, judgment, and advice o Wisdom is knowledge with extraordinary scope, depth, and balance that is applicable to specific situations o Wisdom, when used, is well intended and combines mind and virtue (character) There is no association between age and wisdom Whether a person is wise depends on whether they have extensive life experience with the type of problem given and have requisite cognitive abilities and personality 3 factors help one become wise: 1. General personal conditions such as mental ability 2. Specific expertise conditions such as mentoring or practice 3. Facilitative life contexts such as education or leadership experience

Can a Nursing Home be a Home?

+ Yes + The circumstances fostering this feeling include - Having time to thing about and participate in the placement decision - Having prior knowledge and positive experience with a specific facility - Defining home in terms of family and social relationships rather than in terms of place, objects or total autonomy - Being able to establish a kind of continuity between home and nursing home through activities or similarities in living arrangements + Residents pull from their repertoire of coping stratifies to help them come to terms + Getting residents to reminisce about home actually facilitates adjustment + Residents satisfaction related to; facility, staff, residential factors (figure 5.5) - Staff satisfaction plays a crucial role

Aging in Place

+ You grow old and die where you have lived most of your life + As the environment in which one lives becomes more restrictive, many older adults engage in selection and compensation to cope + May select a different place to live or adapt behavior in order to compensate for their limitations + The idea of aging in place reflects a balance of environmental press and competence through selection and compensation + Being able to remain independent in community is important for people, especially in terms of their self esteem + Older adults who age in place form strong emotional and cognitive bonds with their residences that help transform a house into a home - Having a home provides a strong source of self identity + Making a change in where people live, and having to psychologically disconnect with a place where they may have lived for many decades, can be difficult and traumatic + Feeling one is at home is a major aspect of aging in place + Providing older adults a place to call their own that supports the development of the psychological attachments necessary to convert a place to a home is key for successful aging in place + Cluster housing is an alternative that combines the aging in place philosophy with supportive services - Key feature is that services are provided to the residents by staff hired by the owner or provider under contract - Emphasizes individual choice on the part of the residents in terms of what services to use - Low cost alternative to nursing home, but not covered by insurance

Information-Processing Model

+ assumes that the brain-mind relationship is analogous to a computer and its software + Uses a computer metaphor to explain how people process stimuli + Information enters the system and is transformed, coded, and stored in various ways + Based on three long-held assumptions: 1. People are active participants in the process 2. Both quantitative (how much information is remembered) and qualitative (what kinds of information are remembered) aspects of performance can be examined 3. Information is processed through a series of processes First, incoming information is transformed based on what a person already knows about it Second, researchers look for age differences in both how much information is processed and what types of information are remembered best under various conditions + Third, researchers in adult development and aging focus on several aspects of information processing + Using this model poses three fundamental questions for adult development and aging: 1. What areas of information processing show evidence of age differences? 2. How can we explain variability when we find age differences in information processing? 3. What are the practical implications of age related changes in information processing? Sensory Memory: o Is a brief and almost identical representation of the stimuli that exists in the observable environment o Takes in a large amounts of information rapidly o This type of memory is as if the representation exists in your mind in the absence of the stimuli itself o Unless we pay attention to sensory information the representation will be lost quickly o Age differences are not typically found in sensory memory (age differences in sensory memory) *** sensory memory is the storage system that retains very large amounts of information, in close to the original form, for very brief periods of time *** this information is lost if it is not given some attention and rehearsed *** sensor memory seems to remain fairly intact with age

Complex Development in the Prefrontal Cortex

+ involved in the most important part aspects of thinking and reasoning, including executive functioning, memory and emotion + Positive Effect: the fact that older adults are more motivated to derive emotional meaning from life and to maintain positive feelings + Positive and negative processing occurs in different brain regions + When older adults process information that is emotionally positive, they also show increased activity in the middle portion of the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the cingulate cortex

Types of Nursing Homes

+ little to no independence, high degree of medical care required + House the largest number of older residents of long-term care facilities + They are governed by the state and federal regulations that establish a minimum standards of care + Two levels of care are defined - Skilled nursing homes: consist of 24 hour care; covered by Medicare Part A (Inpatient Care) for 100 days; Patients need continous care - Intermediate care is also 24 hour, but at a less intense level; covered by Medicare Part B (Outpatient Care) - The difference is the type and numbers of health care workers on the staff + The cost is high + Will be an increasingly important political issue in coming decades because of baby boomers

Autoimmunity

+ the immune system begins to attack the body itself - Results from an imbalance of B and T lymphocytes, giving rise to autoantibodies and is responsible for several disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis + Connection between immune system and psychological state have growing support -

Piaget's Theory

+ we develop new ways of thinking (cognitive structures) as we mature + Intellectual development is adaptation through activity + Believed development of intelligence stems from the emergence of increasingly complex cognitive structures Basic Concepts: o Thought is governed by the principles of adaptation and organization o Adaptation is the process of adjusting thinking to the environment o Adaptation occurs through organization o The organization of thoughts is reflected in cognitive structures that change over the life span + Two processes determine the development of these cognitive structures: o Assimilation: is the use of currently available knowledge to make sense out of incoming information o Accommodation: involves changing one's thought to make it a better approximation of the world of experience *** this often marks a transition to a new stage + There were four stages, but the formal operations stage is most relevant to aging. - We can think abstractly, reason, form and test hypotheses in this stage. - However, this leads to a need to resolve ambiguity. Sensorimotor Period: o Babies and infants gain knowledge by using their sensory and motor skills, beginning with basic reflexes and eventually moving to purposeful, planned sequences of behavior o Object permanence: most important thing they learn is that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight Preoperational Period: o Children's thinking is best described as egocentric o Children believe all people and all inanimate objects experience the world just as they do o Thinking is not based on logic Concrete Operational Period: o Logical reasoning emerges o Children become capable of classifying objects into groups based on a logical principle: Mentally reversing a series of events Realizing when changes occur in one perceptual dimension and they are compensated for in another No net changes occur (conservation) Understanding the concept of transitivity (if A>B and B>C, then A>C) Formal Operational Period: o Marks the end of cognitive development o Formal operational thinking characterizes adult thought o 4 aspects: 1. It takes a hypothesis-testing approach (hypothetico-deductive) to problem solving 2. Thinking is done in one framework at a time 3. The goal is to arrive at one correct solution 4. It is unconstrained by reality o Essence is a way of conceiving abstract concepts and thinking about them in a systematic, step-by-step way o Governed by a generalized logical structure that provides solutions to problems people have never seen and many never encounter o Aim is to resolve ambiguity - one and only one answer is the goal o One serious problem for Piaget's theory is many adults apparently do not attain formal operations

Longitudinal Designs

+(Longitudinal Study) The same individuals are observed or tested repeatedly at different points in their lives + Involves a lengthwise account of development and is the most direct way to watch growth occur + Microgenetic study - A special type of longitudinal design, participants are tested repeatedly over a span of days or weeks, typically with the aim of observing change directly as it occurs - Useful when investigators have hypotheses bout a specific period when developmental change should occur, or in order to intensively document a behavior over time - Useful in tracking changes as a result of intervention + Three Problems - Practice effects - performance may improve over time because people are tested over and over again with the same measures - Participant drop out - because it is difficult to keep a group of research participants intact over the course of a longitudinal study - Generalization is limited

List some cardiovascular diseases

- Congestive heart failure - Angina Pectoris - Myocardial Infarction

Congregate Housing

+Kind of like living in campus dorm; cafeteria, some health services, but not extensisve + Includes a range of living options from those providing only housing to those providing some level of medical services + Most common form is an apartment complex of older faults that provides a level of support such as shared meals + Often the least expensive form of supported living for older adults, because the cost is typically subsidized by various government agencies and non-profit organizations + Especially important option for low income, who need support to remains out of a nursing home + There is a shortage of them though + Level of medical assistance is lower than in assisted living + Do not provide 24 hour medical services on site + Service coordination accomplished several things: interface with housing officials, individual service plans for residents, coordination of shared activities and mediation of resident conflicts + Most require residents to be capable of independent living and not require continual medical care, be medically stable, know where they are and oriented in time, show no evidence of disrupted behaviour, and be about to follow any specific service plan developed for them + Typically move in, in response to a significant decline in functioning or health related problem + Good for those seeking specific types of social engagement

Summarize the state of research into improving memory with drugs.

+Nothing really seems to work, partly because we don't know enough about how memory works on a molecular level. +However, drugs that improve attention may be effective (speculation on my part). +NOTE: Drugs for DAT are of limited use. Also, there is the problem of possibly biased research. +GINKO BILOBA evidence is mixed.

Can Older Adults Compensate for Changes in the Brain

+studies focusing on verbal working memory and long-term memory and long-term memory show focal, unilateral activity in the left prefrontal region in younger adults but bilateral activation (i.e. in both the left and right prefrontal areas) in older adults when performing the same task + Older adults do compensate + Bilateral activation in older adults may serve a functional and supportive role in their cognitive functioning + There is greater prefrontal bilateral activity in older adults during working memory tasks than in younger adults - There is left lateralized prefrontal engagement in younger adults, where older adults also engage the right prefrontal areas - May be that older adults are more adept at compensating for normative deterioration in the brain by utilizing other areas

Average Longevity

- "Average life expectancy" and refers to the age at which half of the individuals who are born in a particular year will have died - Effected by genetics and environment - Currently about 79 for US - Computed on all the people who are alive at that age, people who died earlier are not included - Has been increasing since 1900, with biggest increase in first half, because of declines in infant mortality rates from eliminating diseases like smallpox and polio, as well as decrease in mothers who died giving birth

What changes occur in the cardiovascular system as we age?

- Accumulation of fat deposits occur in and around the heart -heart muscle is gradually replaced with stiffer connective tissue, most important change in the circulatory system is the stiffening (hardening) of the walls of the arteries - Heart muscle stiffens - Decline in aerobic capacity - several diseases INCREASE in frequency with age: congestive heart failure angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis (severe buildup of fat inside and the calcification of the arterial walls), cerebrovascular disease(cardiovascular disease in the brain), and hypertension (high blood pressure)

Acute Disease

- Are conditions that develop over a short period of time and cause a rapid change in health - Most cured with medications, or allowed to run its course + Older adults have fewer colds + When they do get acute diseases, they tend to get sicker, recovery takes longer, and death occurs more often

The Rate-of-Living Theory

- Assumes that organisms have only so much energy to expend in a lifetime. The idea is that the rate of a creature's metabolism is related to how long it lives. - It also shows that the body's declining ability to adapt to stress with age may alos be a partial cause of aging. - Evidence: flying insects live longer if not allowed to fly. animals with a faster metabolism tend to live shorter lives (e.g. mice vs. elephants). Some evidence that caloric restriction in humans is associated with greater life-expectancy, but not solid yet.

Why might hypertension be important to a psychologist studying cognitive aging?

- Blood pressure normally increases with age. - IF this increase is too severe, hypertension can result. - Hypertension can result in cerebrovascular damage, which can lead to mild cognitive impairment. - Nearly 30% (percent) of the population age 18 and older has some degree of hypertension -rate is usually the same for European Americans and Mexican Americans, but jumps to about 40% (percent) among African Americans - hypertension is often related to Anemia and is more common in older Adults

What are some changes in bones that occur as we age?

- Bone loss begins in the late 30s accelerates in the mid 50s, especially in women, and slows down by the 70s. (in adulthood, osteoclasts (cells that break down bone) begin to work more than osteoblasts (cells that build bone) - Women lose bone mass twice as fast than men. ( less exercise or beneficial strain on bones; hormonal changes) - Bones tend to become porous; women are more susceptible to osteoporosis.

Describe one of the more consequential changes in the digestive system that occurs with age.

- Breakdown and absorption of food decreases as the result of diseased enzyme production (can result in Protein Energy Malnutrition). - Kidneys filter at a slower rate. - Changes in stomach, intestines, and pancreas can result in constipation (& cognitive impairment). Bladder control problems in 30% of all those over 65. -incontinence.

Primary appraisal

- Categorizes events into 3 groups based on the significance they have for our well being: irrelevant, benign, or positive, and stressful - Filter the events we experience - Anything that is irrelevant or benign is not stressful - Means we sort out events and concentrate on dealing with them effectively - But also means we can be wrong about our reading of an event

What happens to taste and smell with increasing age

- Changes in taste and smell are minimal. - The ability to detect odors declines rapidly after age 60 in most people. - Sensory declines in taste are unclear; however, psychologically, taste seems to change. This is likely due to changes in smell.

Chronic Disease

- Conditions that last longer period of time, and may be accompanied by residual functional impairment that necessitates long-term management

What are the three general approaches to slowing or reversing the aging process?

- Delay chronic illnesses of old age (ex: free radical reduction). - Slow the fundamental processes of aging so that the average lifespan is increased to over 110 years (roughly 78 now) - Arrest or reverse aging by removing the damaged inevitably caused by the metabolic processes.

Environmental Factors in Average Longevity

- Disease, toxins, lifestyle and social class are among the most important - Impact of SES results from the access one has to goods and services, especially medical care and died - How environmental factors influence average life expectancy changes over time - For the most part, we are responsible for them

What changes occur in the autonomic nervous system as we age?

- Elderly are more susceptible to hypothermia. (Body temp below 95 degrees) - Elderly aspect of sleep undergoes changing. They are more likely to compensate by taking day time naps. - Their circadian rhythm changes from a two-phase pattern to a multi rhythm pattern that is similar to that of infants.

What reproductive changes occur in men? What has become a method of addressing the changes that occur in the male reproductive system?

- Erectile dysfunction - Decreased sperm count - Viagra and similar drugs treat erectile dysfunction, which increases in frequency with age. - Influences levels of nitric oxide - Gradual DECREASE in testosterone levels

Secondary Appraisal

- Evaluated our perceived ability to cope with harm, threat, or challenge - "What can I do", "how likely is it that I can use one of my options successfully", and "will this option reduce my stress"

What are some changes in hair that occur as we age?

- Hair loss is caused by the destruction of germ centers that produce the hair follicles. - Graying is a result of a cessation of pigment production. - Men do not lose their facial hair, get bushy eyebrows and more hair in the ears and nose - Hormonal changes cause females to gain facial hair. (change in relative amounts of certain hormones)

Genetic Factors in Average Longevity

- Having long or short lived parents is a good predictor of your life expectancy - Human Genome Project has mapped all of our genes - Attempts are being made to treat diseases by improving the way that medications work and even by implanting 'correct' genes into people in the hope that the good genes will reproduce and wipe out defective genes

Problem Focused Coping

- Involves attempts to tackle the problem head on - Ex: taking medication for disease, studying for an exam

Emption Focused Coping

- Involves dealing with ones feelings about the stressful event - Ex: allowing oneself to express anger over being ill, or failing an exam - Purpose may be to help oneself deal with a situation + A positive attitude about ones self and ones abilities Is important + Good problem solving skills, social skills, and social support help + Financial resources are also important

Reappraisal

- Involves making a new primary or secondary appraisal resulting from change in the situation - Can either increase stress or lower stress

Intelligence in Everyday Life:

- It might be defined as the innate set of neurophysiologically based abilities required to efficiently acquire information and to be able to effectively apply that information in both expected and novel situations. - There are likely different types of intelligence. ** For example, some people might be very good at various sports, but not math. Intelligence consists of three major clusters of related abilities: problem-solving ability, verbal ability, and social competence Problem-solving ability consists of behaviors such as reasoning logically, identifying connections among ideas, seeing all aspects of a problem, and making good decisions Verbal ability comprises such things as speaking articulately, reading with high comprehension, and having good vocabulary Social competence includes behaviors such as accepting others for what they are, admitting mistakes, displaying interest in the world at large, and being on time for appointments

What reproductive changes occur in women?

- Menopause due to climacteric changes. - No changes occur in the desire to have sex; however, the availability of a suitable partner for women is a major barrier.

Why don't the hearts of older adults pump as much blood as the hearts of younger adults?

- Muscle tissue is replaced with connective tissue. - A layer of fat accumulates within the lining surrounding the heart. - *Cardiovascular DISEASE is the leading cause of death in the US. (Weight and diabetes are primary risk factors). - Congestive Heart Failure: Severely reduced ability of the heart to contract and pump blood. (Blood doesn't get moved through the body, so pressure increases, body swells. - Angina: chest pain resulting from a lack of adequate oxygen supply to the heart. - myocardial infarction: Heart Attack. Blood supply is cut-off

How does our voice change as we age?

- Our voices lower in pitch and become weaker. (gets deeper, softer, more "throaty", more trembling) -Increased breathlessness and trembling. - Lower and less pronounced pronunciation. - Decreased volume. - Changes likely the result of changes in tissue AND nervous system function. - Dianne Rehm on NPR is an example (although due to in part to disease, not just age, in her case).

What are some examples of adaptive behaviors that older adults might do?

- Pain in joints may cause older adults to reduce their mobility. - Older people who witness friends or relatives struggling during rehabilitation may reduce their own activities as a precaution.

Ethnic Differences in Average Longevity

- People in different ethnic group do not have the same average longevity at birth - Differences result primarily from differences in nutrition, health care, stress, and SES - In late life, people in some ethnic minority groups live longer than European Americans

What are two major environmental causes of wrinkling?

- Smoking - Exposure to ultraviolet rays

What age-related changes occur in people's senses of touch (somesthesia) and balance?

- Somesthesia is our sense of touch - Changes in sensitivity to touch, temperature, and pain are complex and not understood. - Dizziness and vertigo are common in older adults and increase with age, as do falls. - Taking tai chi classes may help to improve balance issues. - Slight loss of sensitivity on smooth (non-hairy) skin surfaces. Other than that, we don't really know.

What are some changes in muscles and balance that occur as we age?

- The amount of muscle we lose is hardly noticeable in terms of strength and endurance, but we lose more muscle in the legs than in the arms and hands. - There isn't much difference in the rate of muscle change between men and women. - As lower body strength declines, the likelihood of balance problems and falls increase as do problems with walking. Exercise may help delay theses changes.

Maximum Longevity

- The oldest age to which any individual of species lives - Estimated to be somewhere around 120 years, because key body systems have limits on how long they last

What is menopause and what are its behavioral implications?

- The point at which a woman's ovaries no longer produce eggs. (gone without a period for 12 months) - Menopause associated with sleep problems. - less interest in men. - change in mood.

What age-related changes in body build occur as we age?

- We decrease in height; (between mid 50's and mid 70's) men lose about 1 inch, and women lose about 2inches. (remains stable until 50's) - Our weight fluctuates (increase through middle age, decreases throughout old age) - The spine compresses (results in height loss) -Our posture changes (hunched back) - less subcutaneous fat, older adults who have normal body weight at age 65 have longer life expectancy and lower rates of disability than 65 year olds in other weight cateogories -OAs look and are more frail, less muscle and bone mass

Describe Schaie's research looking at how Thurstone's primary mental abilities change with age.

- five + abilities: 1. Numerical facility: math ability. 2. Word fluency: verbal ability. 3. Verbal meaning: vocabulary. 4. Inductive reasoning: from specific to general. 5. Spatial orientation: spatial ability. Also 6. Perceptual speed: speed of processing. 7. Verbal memory: what it sounds like. + Seattle longitudinal study started by K. Warner Schaie in 1956. - On average, all abilities decline beginning at about age 45. - Nearly everyone shows a decline in at least one ability. - However, virtually no one exhibits a decline in all five abilities, even by age 80.

Person-Environment Interaction

- means behavior (B) is a function of both the person (P) and the environment (E) + Most models emphasize the importance of peoples perceptions of their environments + Kurt Lewin's Equation: - B=F(P,E): Behavior is a function of both the person and the environment; so is well being and health

Quality of Life

- refers to peoples perceptions of their position in life in context of their culture and in relation to their goals, expectations, values, and concerns - Tend to look at health related quality of life and non health related quality - Most research focuses on two areas: (1) quality of life in the context specific diseases or conditions (2) quality of life relating to end of life issues - In many respects it is subjective judgement - Selection, optimization, and compensation model (SOC) - quality of life is a successful use of SOC, and refers to peoples perceptions of their position in life in context of their culture and in relation to their goals, expectations, values and concerns - More difficult to assess in people with dementia and chronic diseases

Neuroscience Perspectives

1) Neuropsychological Approach - Compares brain functioning of healthy older adults with adults displaying various pathological disorders in the brain - Interested in whether patients of any age with damage in specific regions of the brain show similar cognitive deficits to those shown by healthy older adults - If this is the case, researchers can conclude that decline in cognitive functioning as we grow older may be related to unfavourable changes in the same specific regions of the brain observed in the brain damaged patients - Also want to isolate the neural or brain mechanisms that are associated with both normal and pathological decline in cognitive functions - These findings stimulate developmental theories 2) Neurocorrelational Approach - Attempts to relate measures of cognitive performance to measures of brain structure or functioning - Instead of direct measures, some may investigate the correlation between behavioural tests that are associated with the function of specific brain regions 3) Activation Imaging Approach - Attempts to directly link functional brain activity with cognitive behavioural data - Allows real time investigation of changes in brain functioning as they affect cognitive performance in older adults - Relies on fMRI - Compensatory Changes: changes that allow older adults to adapt to the inevitable behavioural decline resulting from changes in specific areas of the brain

What age-related changes happen in the structure of the eye regarding vision? Structural changes in the eye. and retinal changes?

1. Amount of light that passes through the eye decreases. 2. The ability to adjust to changes in lighting decreases. 3. Yellowing of the lens 4. Changes in the ability to focus (presbyopia) 5. Cataracts and glaucoma may result from changes in the eye (above) - STRUCTURAL *Cornea thickens. *Lens thickens, becomes stiffer, and more yellow. *Cataracts (opaque spots on lens) & Glaucoma (intraocular pressure) become more common. *Loss of cells in the macula (area in and around fovea; macular degeneration) resulting in lower acuity. - FUNCTIONAL *Can't see greens, blues, or violets as well as we age. *Less light gets in. *Lens can't be adjusted as well, resulting in presbyopia. *We become more sensitive to glare. *Pupillary response diminishes. *Light/dark adaptation is slower - Macula- most densely packed toward the rear and especially at the focal point of vision - Fovea- center of the macula, where incoming light is focused for maximum acuity, as when you are reading - A second age related retinal disease is a by product of diabetes, a chronic disease

How does hearing change as people age?

1. Damage due to loud environment results ion Presbycusis 2. Decline in the ability to hear high pitched tones (Presbycusis) 3. Changes in ossicles (mechanical), receptor cells (sensory), loss of neurons in auditory pathway (neural), inadequate nutrition in receptor cells (metabolic). - These result in presbycusis. - Especially greater loss of hearing for high pitched sounds. - Loss is greater for men than women. - Environmental threats to hearing.

What are the three biological theories of aging?

1. Rate-of-Living Theory 2. Cellular Theory 3. Programmed Cell Death Theory

How does our skin wrinkle? (4 Step Process of Wrinkling)

1. The outer layer thins because of cell loss. 2. Collagen fibers that make up the connective tissue lose their flexibility. (becomes stiffer) 3. Elastin fibers lose their ability to keep skin stretched, which results in sagging. (doesn't function well) 4. Finally, the fat layer that help keeps skin smooth diminishes (becomes less fat) - All of this results in wrinkles & leathery appearance. Smoking and sun make it worse, of course. Also likely results in diminished ability to regulate temperature. Age spots (areas of dark pigmentation) & moles increase

About what percentage of muscle strength is lost by age 70? What about 80?

20% by age 70, 40% by age 80 - but exercise is still effective and may help offset changes in balance

The Betual Project on Memory, Health, and Aging

>4000 Ss, aged 35-80, tested at three-year intervals (15 year data available) Primary objectives: o Examine the development of health and memory in adulthood and old age o Determine early preclinical signs of dementia o Determine risk factors for dementia o Assess pre-morbid memory in subjects in accidents or who acquire diseases during the course of the study

Angina pectoris

A painful condition caused by temporary constriction of blood flow to the heart; resulting in ches pain - In most cases the pain is induced by physical exertion and is relieved within 5 to 10 minutes by rest. - The most common treatment of Angina is nitroglycerin

Atherosclerosis

A process by which fat is deposited on the walls of the arteries.

Congestive heart failure

A condition occurring when cardiac output and the ability of the heart to contract severely decline, making the heart enlarge, increasing pressure to the veins, and making the body swell.

Glaucoma

A condition of the eye caused by abnormal drainage of fluid

Osteoporosis

A degenerative bone disease more common in women in which bone tissue deteriorates severely to produce honeycomb-like bone tissue - age related bone disease characterized by loss of bone mass and greater porosity of the bones (how can we prevent it? guard against it with exercise, increased intake of calcium and vitamin D, hormone replacement therapy

Rheumatoid arthritis:

A destructive form of arthritis involving MORE swelling and more joints than osteoarthritis. - bone deterioration, swelling, redness, - Aches develops in the fingers, wrists, and ankles on both sides of the body - Researchers think that you can inherit a predisposition for the disease.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD

A family of age-related lung cancer diseases that block the passage of air and cause abnormalities inside the lungs. - Damage caused by COPD is irreversible

Osteoarthritis

A form of arthritis marked by gradual onset and progression of pain and swelling, caused primarily by overuse of joint. - cartilage becomes damage with use; bone spurs, but not much redness or swelling, still painful

Presbycusis

A normative age-related loss of the ability to hear high-pitched tones. - has four types of changes in the inner ear 1. Sensorineural, consisting of atrophy and degeneration of receptor cells or the auditory nerve, and is permanent 2. Conductive, consisting of obstruction of or damage to the vibrating sturctures in the outer or middle ear area - Sensory Presbycusis has little effect on other hearing abilities - Metabolic presbycusis produces severe loss of sensitivity to all pitches - Neural presbycusis seriously affects the ability to understand speech -Mechanical Pesbycusis also produces loss across all pitches, but the loss is greatest for high pitches

Some Criticisms Regarding Primary Contro

Age related changes in goals could be the result of natural movement through life cycle, not simply coping with blocked goals Bias toward western cultures in development or primary and secondary control

What disease does a severe decline in smell predict?

Alzheimer's Disease. 40% to 60% decrease in number of odors detected relative to healthy controls.

Telomerase

An enzyme needed in DNA replication to fully reproduce the telomeres when cells divide.

Cerebrovascular accident (CVA)

An interruption of the blood flow in the brain. - Stroke (often caused by atherosclerosis) - Consequences depend on location of damage, which depends on which blood vessels were blocked or ruptured. - Sometimes the damage is on a microscopic scale and isn't immediately noticed: These "mini-strokes" are called Transient Ischemic Attacks. - Two common problems following CVA are: Aphasia (problems with speech and Hemiplegia (paralysis on one side of the body)

Integrating Emotion and Logic

As adults mature they tend to make decisions and analyze problems not so much on logical grounds as on pragmatic and emotional grounds Rules and norms are viewed as relative, not absolute Mature thinkers realize thinking is an inherently social enterprise that demands making compromises with other people and tolerating contradiction and ambiguity Implicit Social Beliefs: o When we encounter a specific situation, our cognitive belief system triggers an emotional reaction and related goals tied to the content of that situation demands integration of cognition and emotion - drives social judgments o Social beliefs are expressed through social rules and evaluations, are powerful influences on how we behave in everyday life o The developmental shift in the integration of cognition and emotion is an important determinant of age differences in social problem solving Neuroimaging Evidence: o Research indicates emotion and logic processing is indeed integrated in adults o Integration occurs in the prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula - amygdala is also involved in processing emotion o Logic and emotion processing share at least some common brain pathways in healthy adults, and these pathways are disrupted in mental disorders

Self-evaluation of memory

Aspects of memory self-evaluations: o Metamemory: knowledge about how memory works and what we believe is true about it o Memory monitoring: awareness of what we are doing with our memory right now Age differences in metamemory: Older adults: o Seem to know less about how memory works than younger adults o View memory as less stable o Expect that memory will deteriorate o Perceive they have less control over memory

T/F: Evidence suggests that telomeres play a major role in aging by adjusting the cell's response to stress and growth stimulation based on cell divisions and DNA damage.

True

Piaget's Theory:

Basic concepts o Assimilation: use of currently available information to make sense out of incoming information o Accommodation: changing one's thought to make a better approximation of the world of experience Sensorimotor period - object permanence Preoperational period - egocentrism Concrete operations period - classification, conservation, mental reversing Formal operations period - abstract thought Going beyond Piaget - Postformal thought: Cognitive maturity beyond formal operations o Tolerance for ambiguity Developmental progressions in adult thought o Reflective judgment o Optimal level of development o Skill acquisition Absolutist, relativistic, and dialectical thinking Integrating emotion and logic Gender issues and postformal thought

Why do losses in strength and endurance in old age have much the same psychological effects as changes in appearance?

Because these changes tell the person that he or she is not as capable of adapting effectively to the environment.

Why are women more susceptible to osteoporosis?

Because women have less bone mass in general, often women do not consume enough calcium, and the decrease in estrogen following menopause accelerates bone loss.

Clinical memory tests

Behavioral and self-report assessments of memory problems o Tests involving everyday tasks show great promise in accurately assessing memory function o Self-report scales are also used to assess memory problems Rating scales: o Structured interviews o Checklists

Control Strategies

Brandtstadter, proposed the preservation and stabilization of a positive view of the self and personal development in later life involve 3 interdependent processes: 1) Assimilative Activities - o People engage in activities that prevent or alleviate losses in domains that are personally relevant for selfesteem and identity 2) Accommodations o People readjust their goals and aspirations as a way to lessen or neutralize the effects of negative self evaluations in key domains 3) Immunizing Mechanisms o People alter the effects of self discrepant evidence Heckhausen, Wrosch and Schultz view control as a motivational system that regulated human behaviour 1) Primary Control Strategies o Involve brining the environment in line with ones desires and goals; Changing the environment to fit your abilities and goals. o Ex: loss job, you entail an active search for a new one or using post- it notes when memory declines 2) Secondary Control Strategies o Involve bringing one-self in line with the environment; Changing your own attitudes, beliefs, and goals to be consistent with your abilities and the environment. o Ex: appraising situation in terms of how you did not even enjoy that job or A runner can no longer race sprint distances competitively, so changes goal to finish a marathon. + This idea has been criticized for being culturally biased; being primarily based on western cultures. + Primary control has functional primacy over secondary: it lets people shape their environment to fit their goals and is thus has more adaptive value to the individual; DECREASES as we grow older, as it is largely biologically determined - However, it has been theorized that our striving for PC remains stable with age. + Secondary Control: our striving for SC may increase as we compensate for a loss of PC. Major function of secondary is to minimize losses or expand levels of primary In childhood much development is directed at expanding the child's primary control potential, and they predict stability in primary control striving through most of adult life As we enter old age, maintenance of primary increasingly depends on secondary Secondary control increases with age Perceived control over desirable out comes = high emotional well being

What is the most common and incapacitating respiratory disorder in older adults?

COPD, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Control strategies:

Brandtstädter proposes that the preservation and stabilization of a positive view of the self and personal development in later life involve three interdependent processes: Assimilative strategies: used when one must prevent losses important to self-esteem (memory aids) Accommodative strategies: involve readjusting one's goals aspirations (adjust time to complete) Immunizing mechanisms: alter the effects of self-discrepant information (alter attribution or deny) Heckhausen and Schulz view control-related strategies in terms of primary and secondary control o Primary control helps change the environment to match one's goals (change environment) - it involves brining the environment into line with one's desires and goals o Secondary control reappraises the environment in light of one's decline in functioning (change perception of self) o The individual turns inward toward the self and assesses the situation Primary control is said to have functional primacy over secondary control o Primary control has more adaptive value to the individual o Secondary control simply minimizes losses or expands levels of primary control Cross-cultural perspectives challenge the notion of primacy and primary control (Western bias) In collectivists societies (e.g. Asian cultures), the emphasis is not on individualistic strategies such as those found in primary control, but to establish interdependence with others, to be connected to them, and bound to a large social institution

What is the leading cause of death in all ethnic groups in the United States?

Cardiovascular diseases.

T/F: Men have a higher rate of cardiovascular disease than women.

True

Attributional Biases

Casual Attributions: explanations of why behaviours occur Dispositional Attributions: casual attribution that concludes the cause resides within the actor Situational Attribution: explanation that the cause resides outside the actor Correspondence Bias - Produce information distortions when making casual attributions about problem solving - Rely more on dispositional information in explaining behaviour and ignore compelling situational information such as extenuating circumstances - Young tend to do this Figure 8.2 summary - When target events were ambiguous as the the specific cause, all adults tend to make interactive attributions, but older adults do so at higher rate - But older adults paradoxically also blame the main character more (dispositional attributes) than younger groups, especially in negative relationship situations With negative relationship situations older adults appear to apply specific social rules in making their attributional judgements - Thought to be because of their stage in life and cohort they were socialized - In these situations, strong beliefs about how one should act appeared to be violated for older adults, particularly older women Older adults more likely to based their judgments on their own beliefs Sociocultural context where people are socialized also plays a role - For older Americans to correct their attributions, the constraint needs to provide a meaningful reason why a person would contradict their beliefs - For older Chinese the meaningful nature of the situation does not ned to be emphasised because to them situational influences and constraints represent a naturally occurring manner to approach any judgmental situation

Attributional biases:

Causal attributions: explanations people construct to explain their behavior (I did that because...) Dispositional attributions: behavioral explanations that reside within the person (He's like that because he...) Situational attributions: behavioral explanations that reside outside the person (Given the environment...) Correspondence bias: relying on dispositional information and ignoring situational information or extenuating circumstances

Implicit memory (Procedural)

Change in task performance that is attributable to having been exposed to information at an earlier time but does not involve active, explicit memory (non-conscious) Slight age differences favor younger adults Distinctions in perceptually (upper/lower) and conceptually (verb or noun) based tests

Cognitive Style as a Processing Goal

Cognitive Style: a type of motivational goal that influences our thinking, which comes from how we approach solving problems - Ex: people with high need for closure prefer order and predictability, are uncomfortable with ambiguity, are close minded, and prefer quick answers + Higher need for closure is associated with greater attributional biases, and this may increase with age. - This is all consistent with findings that Older adults rely more on pre-existing knowledge, and search for less information when making a decision. Older adults social judgment biases are predicted by the degree they need quick and decisive closure - this is not so for younger

Factors that Preserve Memory

Cognitive reserve: there may be specific factors that help preserve memory performance Exercise: o Physical fitness training improves cognitive performance in older adults regardless of the training method of the older adults personal characteristics o Regular exercise increases neural plasticity and can be viewed as an intervention alternative for diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and stroke, and may prevent some of the normative decline typically associated with aging Multilingualism and Cognitive Functioning: o Older adults from 75 to 95 years of age who spoke four languages or more showed the best cognitive state o Bilingualism plays a large role in protecting older adults from cognitive decline Semantic memory in service of episodic memory: o Older adults perform better when they can use previously learned semantic information to support episodic knowledge o The more associations are made, the stronger the effect and the more performance is improved Negative stereotypes and memory performance: o Negative or threatening stereotypes suppress older adults controlled or conscious use of memory while increasing the likelihood they will use automatic responses instead

Moderators of Intellectual Change

Cohort Differences o Dozens of cross-sectional studies document significant differences in intellectual performance with age o Several longitudinal investigations show either no decrement of even an increase in performance o To resolve the discrepancy between these two approaches we have to compare data collected over long periods of time from several samples and analyzed simultaneously in both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs o When this is done the results indicate part of the apparent decline with age in performance on intelligence tests is because of generational differences rather than age differences o Complex patterns of cohort differences indicates interpreting data from cross-sectional studies is difficult Information Processing: o General processing constraints that occur with aging may help identify mechanisms underlying decline in fluid intelligence abilities with age + Remember cognitinve reserve - People who start with greater cognitive ability show less decline on intelligence tests. - Perhaps because they can lose more (cognitive ability) before the loss has consequences that can be detected on intelligence tests. o Working memory decline with increasing age accounts for poor performance on the part of older adults when the tasks involve coordinating both new incoming information and stored information o The inability to inhibit actions and thoughts or to avoid interference typically found in older adults may also account for efficient functioning in fluid and/or mechanic abilities Social and life style variables: o Differences in cognitive skills needed in different occupations makes a difference in intellectual development o To the extent a job requires you to use certain cognitive abilities a great deal, you may be less likely to show declines in them as you age o Variables implicating slower rates of intellectual decline include Higher socioeconomic status Exposure to stimulating environments The utilization of cultural and educational resources throughout adulthood Not feeling lonely Personality: o High initial levels of fluid abilities and a high sense of internal control led to positive changes in people's perceptions of their abilities o Low initial levels led to decreases in perceptions of ability and behavior o Neuroticism and chronic psychological decline have been implicated in rapid cognitive decline o People with flexible attitudes at midlife tend to experience less decline in intellectual competence than people who are more rigid in middle age Health: o Normative changes in brain structure with age affect functioning o Brain injuries, nutrition, and other factors can affect functioning o Diseases also have negative effects o Physical exercise has considerable benefits

Moderators of intellectual change:

Cohort differences: o Comparing longitudinal studies with cross-sectional show little or no decline in intellectual performance with age Information processing: o Perceptual speed may account for age-related decline o Working memory decline may account for poor performance of older adults if coordination between old and new information is required Social and lifestyle variables: o Differences in cognitive skills needed in different occupations makes a difference in intellectual development o Higher education and socioeconomic status also related to slower rates of intellectual decline o Does a cognitively engaging lifestyle predict greater intellectual functioning? (See current controversies) Personality: o High levels of fluid abilities and a high sense of internal control lead to positive changes in peoples perception of their abilities Health: o A connection between disease and intelligence has been established in general and in cardiovascular disease in particular o The participants in the Seattle longitudinal study who declined in inductive reasoning had significantly more illness diagnoses and visits to physicians for cardiovascular disease o Hypertension is not clear. Severe HT may indicate decline whereas mild HT may have positive effects on intellectual functioning o Why would there by a connection between intelligence and arthritis? Relevancy and appropriateness of tasks: o Traditional tests have high correlation with tests that have been updated to measure actual tasks faced by older persons Modifying primary abilities: o Training seems to show declines in some primary abilities Project ADEPT and Project ACTIVE: o Ability-specific training does improve in primary abilities o Effects varies in ability to maintain and transfer gains Other attempts to train fluid abilities: o Schaie and Willis' cognitive training showed improvement in spatial and reasoning abilities both with people whose abilities were declining and improvement in those whose abilities had stabilized Long-term effects of training: o Seven year follow-up to the original ADEPT showed significant training effects o 64% of trained group's performance was above the pre-training level compared to 33% of the control group

Antioxidants

Compounds that protect cells from the harmful effects of free radicals.

Motivational and Social Processing Goals: Personal Goals

Consist of underlying motivations for our behaviour and how we perceive our own ever changing environment They change to match our needs Selective optimization with compensation - A theoretical model that suggests development occurs as we continuously update our personal goals to match our appraisal of available resources to obtain those goals - We choose manageable goals based on our interests as well as physical and cognitive strengths and limitations - In older adulthood, shift toward physical health and socio-emotional demands Goal selection requires we thoughtfully choose where we invest our resources Older adults are less willing to invest energy into improving their cognitive performance, their strategy choice is more optimal for them because they are more interested in retaining their autonomy by maintaining abilities at their current level

Age-related changes in primary abilities:

Data from K. Warner Schaie's Seattle Longitudinal study of more than 5000 individuals from 1956 to 1998 in six testing cycles (aged 20 - 90+) o People tend to improve on primary abilities until late 30s early 40s o Scores stabilize until mid 50s early 60s o By late 60s consistent decline are seen o Nearly everyone shows a decline in one ability, but few show decline on four or five abilities o Ignoring gender or age differences can be very misleading

Declarative memory

Declarative = one type of explicit memory, may be subdivided into two subsystems: o Episodic memory: conscious recalling of information form a specific event or time o Recall remembering without hints vs. Recognition choosing from items Ex: learning for this course, memorizing information o Semantic memory: learning and remembering the meaning of words and concepts not tied to specific occurrences of events in time Ex. Recalling word definitions for a puzzle, translating languages Example: o Sample: 1796 community dwelling adults (1005 women, 791 men); age groups (35-50 yrs, n=671; 55-65 yrs, n=569; 70-85 yrs, n=556) o Measures: 12 episodic memory tests; 5 semantic memory tests o Covariate: co-varied years of education for all analyses, MMSE <24 removed from study

Impression formation:

Decline in cognitive processing resources might impact the social judgment process o Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments and later correct or adjust them based on more reflective thinking Thus, age-related changes in processing capacity might make older adults more vulnerable to social judgment biases When forming an initial impression o Older adults also use less detailed information - due to deficiencies in memory capacity Older adults also weigh negative information more heavily in their social judgments than young adults do o In particular, older adults are more willing to change their initial impression from positive to negative o But are less willing to change an initial from negative to positive even in light of new positive information

Problem Solving

Denney's Model of Unexercised and Optimally Exercised Abilities: o Intellectual abilities relating to problem solving follow two types of development functions o Unexercised ability: is the ability a normal, healthy adult would exhibit without practice or training Fluid intelligence is thought to be an example of untrained ability o Optimally exercised ability: is the ability a normal, healthy adult would demonstrate under the best conditions of training or practice Crystallized intelligence is an example of optimally exercised ability o Argues that the overall developmental course of both abilities is the same: they tend to increase until late adolescence or early adulthood and slowly decline thereafter Practical Problem Solving: o One way to assess practical problem solving in more focused terms is to create measures with clearly identifiable dimensions that relate to specific types of problems o Observed Tasks of Daily Living (OTDL) measure: consists of three dimensions that reflect three specific problems in everyday life - food preparation, medication intake, and telephone use o Performance on the OTDL is directly influenced by age, fluid intelligence, and crystallized intelligence and indirectly by perceptual speed, memory, and several aspects of health o Findings indicate basic measures of inductive reasoning, domain-specific knowledge, memory, and working memory were related to everyday assessments of each of these abilities o Older adults are more likely to vary their strategy given the problem-solving context o In interpersonal conflict problems they use more emotion-regulating strategies whereas in instrumental situations they use self-action strategies o Middle-aged older adults define problems more in terms of interpersonal goals - younger adults and adolescence focused more on competence goals o Older adults defined problems more in terms of interpersonal concerns and subsequently reported strategies such as regulating others or including others, whereas competence goals resulted in strategies that involved more self-actions o Older adults are more confident and generate more effective solutions to problems typical of the life stage of older adults o Older adults are rated as more effective in their everyday problem-solving strategy use than younger adults across all types of problem situations o Conclusions: 1. Practical problem-solving abilities are multidimensional and may not interrelate strongly with each other 2. The developmental functions of these abilities are complex and may differ across abilities 3. The relations between practical problem-solving abilities and psychometric intelligence are equally complex 4. The close connection between solving practical problems and emotion and motivation may prove fruitful in furthering our understanding of individual differences in abilities

Training memory skills

E - I - E - I - O strategy o External aids (notebooks or calendars) o Internal aids (mental processes, role rehearsal, method of loci, mnemonics) o Explicit (direct aids) o Implicit (indirect aids) o O! (Suddenly remembering) Memory drugs: o Only modest, short term improvement o No medical breakthroughs many drugs cause memory side effects Exercising memory: o Practice organizing a grocery list o Physical and mental activity may serve as a protective factor later in life Combing strategies: tailor the intervention to fit the problem

Emotion as a Processing Goal

Emotional goals become more important and salient as we get older Given limited time in life span, older adults may be more motivated to emphasise emotional goals and aspects of life Positivity Effect: - Older adults avoid negative information and focus more on positive information when making decisions and judgments and when remembering events Emotional goals help older adults because they create a supportive contest for their cognitive functioning But there are times when emotions may impeded information processing - Highly arousing situations require a great amount of executive control processing that may lead older adults to be poorer at remembering and processing information

Age Differences in Encoding Vs. Retrieval

Encoding: o A strategy is anything people do to make the task easier and increase the efficiency of encoding and retrieval o Older adults tend not to behave as strategically when studying information to be remembered o Age changes observed reflect more a decrease in the degree the strategies are used spontaneously, rather than a decrease in the ability to use strategies Retrieval: o Older adults tend to spontaneously use fewer retrieval strategies o Even when encoding strategies are provided, and the opportunity to apply them during recall is allowed, older adults still do worse Neuroscience Evidence: o Neuroimaging studies indicate during encoding, older adults prefrontal cortex shows over-activity, indicating the usual pattern of compensatory processes with age o Neuroimaging studies show age-related differences in how the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus work together In younger adults, activity in these areas depends on the extent the retrieval task requires relations to be made between the information being remembered In older adults, activity in these areas stayed equivalent irrespective of relational processing o Younger adults have extensive neural network connections in the parietal and frontal regions involved in retrieval than older adults o Older adults show higher levels of brain activity in these regions, indicating a likely compensatory strategy for less extensive networks Research in encoding and retrieval processes is important for 2 key reasons: 1. It emphasizes age-related decrements in memory are complex; they are not due to changes in a single process 2. Memory intervention or training programs must consider both encoding and retrieval

What can be done to limit the effects of arthritis?

Exercise and resistance training, which can improve muscle strength even up to age 90.

Factors that preserve memory

Exercise: physical exercise improves cognitive performance Multilingualism and cognitive functioning: research suggests that older adults who speak four or languages had the best cognitive state independence of education Semantic memory in service of episodic memory: older adults are better at memory of related as opposed to unrelated word pairs Negative stereotypes and memory performance: older adults do worse on memory tasks if they believe that age hampers memory ability

Expertise

Experts don't always follow the rules, they are more flexible, creative, and curious, and they have superior strategies grounded on superior knowledge for accomplishing a task Expert performance tends to peak by middle age and drops of slightly after that Declines in expert performance are not nearly as great as they are for the abilities of information processing, memory, and fluid intelligence that underlie expertise, and expertise may sometimes compensate for declines in underlying cognitive abilities Lifelong Learning: o Adult learners differ from younger learners in several ways: Adults have a higher need to know why they should learn something before undertaking it Adults enter a learning situation with more and different experience on which to build Adults are most willing to learn those things they believe are necessary to deal with real-world problems rather than abstract, hypothetical situations Most adults are more motivated to learn by internal factors than by external factors

Memory and Nutrition

Flavonoids, found in green tea and blueberries, among other foods, may reverse age-related deficits in spatial memory Dietary iron intake in midlife has also been associated with better verbal memory Several vitamins, especially B vitamins 6,9 (folic acid) and 12 have been associated with memory and other cognitive functions

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

Fluid intelligence: consists of the abilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, allow you to make inferences, and enable you to understand the relations among concepts o Includes the abilities you need to understand and respond to any situation, but especially new ones Crystallized intelligence: is the knowledge you have acquired through life experience and education in a particular culture o Includes your breadth of knowledge, comprehension of communication, judgment, and sophistication with information Fluid intelligence declines throughout adulthood, whereas crystallized intelligence improves These different developmental trends imply: 1. They indicate that - although it continues through adulthood - learning becomes more difficult with age 2. Intellectual development varies a great deal from one set of skills to another

Cellular Theory

Focuses on the notion that the number of times cells can divide presumably limits the life span of a complex organism.

Normal Vs. Abnormal Memory Aging

From a functional perspective, one way to distinguish normal and abnormal changes is to ask whether the changes disrupt a person's ability to perform daily living tasks Along with the prefrontal cortex, parietal region, and hippocampus that are involved with memory, there are also structural changes in the white and grey matter o Local atrophy in these structures has been shown to be related to memory decrements in older adults Memory and Physical and Mental health: o Damage to the brain resulting from physical or mental health disorders can result in profound decrements in different types of memory o Sever seizures in epilepsy can result in damage to the hippocampus and is heavily involved in creating associations between incoming information and information already in memory o Temporary global amnesia (TGA): a condition were people temporarily experience a complete loss of memory and are disoriented in time o TGA has been associated with malfunctions of the valve in the jugular vein allowing blood to flow in the wrong direction

Attention - The Basics

From the functional perspective, attention is composed of separate dimensions serving different functions o The complex tasks we engage in when processing information usually require more than one attentional functions Attentional processes are influenced by the capacity to sustain attention, as well as the speed that information is processed Attentional control is linked to the processes in the parieto-frontal lobe - the parieto-frontal integration processes undergo significant change with age

What does the NIHSenior Health recommend to prevent osteoporosis?

Get enough vitamin D and dietary calcium. (Milk and broccoli are high in calcium) Osteoporosis is the leading cause of broken bones in older women

Free radicals

Highly reactive but short-lived chemicals, which are produced randomly in normal metabolism, and cause changes in cells that are thought to result in aging.

Implicit Vs. Explicit Memory

Implicit Memory: (procedural memory) involves retrieval of information without conscious or intentional recollection o We do things from memory but we do not have to think about them o Learning sequences tend to show age differences, whereas learning spatial context does not Explicit Memory: (declarative memory) is intentional and conscious remembering of information learned and remembered at a specific point in time o Performance on explicit memory tasks decline with age

Activation of Stereotypes

Implicit stereotyping - The activation of strong stereotypes, not only automatic but also unconscious - Likely to influence our behaviour without us being aware Young-old attitudes test - People categorise photos of faces by indicating as fast as they can whether the photo is a younger or older person - Then do pleasant vs. unpleasant - Now they use a combination of old vs younger and pleasant vs unpleasant - If you have a negative stereotype if becomes difficult to use your hand to indicate old when it is associated with pleasant - People of all ages found to be faster at young pleasant than old pleasant Stereotype Threat: - An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong + SAT study: Race X Instruction (i.e. subjects told the test is evaluative or not evaluative) design. Instruction mattered for African Americans but not white Americans. - Similar results seen for gender. + Also, remember, Age diffs in memory larger when they know their memory is being tested. - You may perform poorly on a task associated with that stereotype regardless of high competence in the setting Middle age adults also susceptible May contribute to our perception of age related decline in cognitive functioning Physical negative aging stereotype has a harmful effect on older adults balance performance Positive stereotypes could have ability to reduce cardiovascular stress

Social judgment processes:

Impression formation o The way we form and revise first impressions about others o Declines in cognition processing resources might impact the social judgment process **** Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments and later correct or adjust them based on more reflective thinking

Intelligence in everyday life:

Intelligence involves more than just a particular fixed set of characteristics Many different models of intelligence...not all have the same components Laypersons and experts agree on three clusters of intelligence o Problem-solving ability o Verbal ability o Social competence

What does it mean to say that intelligence is plastic?

Intelligence may appear to decline in an area simply because a person chooses not to practice that given skill. Your professor's view: Is that skill a basic aspect of intelligence then? Little g is likely biologically/genetically determined, and thus, relatively little plasticity should be expected.

Wisdom:

Involves practical knowledge Is given altruistically Involves psychological insights Based on life experience Implicit conceptions of wisdom are widely shared within a culture and include o Exceptional level of functioning o A dynamic balance between intellect, emotion, and motivation o A high degree of personal and interpersonal competence o Good intentions

Damage caused by COPD is ________?

Irreversible

Speed of Processing

Is how quickly and efficiently the early steps in information processing is completed Research shows whether or not you observe slowing depends on what the task is because all components of mental processing do not slow equivalently The amount of beta-amyloid protein found in the central nervous system, a biomarker linked with the possible subsequent development of dementia, has been shown to be related to the degree processing speed slows

A Processing Capacity Explanation for Age Differences in Social Judgements

It appears processing recourse limitations play an important role in understanding how older adults process and access social information Older adults consistently hold to their initial judgements or conclusions of why negative events occur more often than younger Older adults typically exhibit lower levels of cognitive processing recourses Possible this decline in capacity might impact their judgment Older adults may have limited cognitive resources to process detailed information presented after the initial impression if formed

What is our vestibular sense responsible for? What age-related changes occur in this sense?

Its responsible for balance - we become less stable with increasing age (dizziness, vertigo) - muscles changes, and internal ear changes, and likelly neurala changes cause this - takes more time to process balance information

Memory and Aging: Working memory:

Limited capacity - about seven chunks Plays an active, critical, and central role in encoding (Y), storage (N), and retrieval (Y) Older adults, presented with multiple tasks, do poorly compared to younger Evidence of age-related decline in working memory not entirely clear, but there is evidence these differences relate to performance on more complex cognitive tasks Older adults may be able to access info but then have trouble "juggling" or making sense of it

Active Life Expectancy

Living to a healthy old age - ends at the point when one loses independence or must rely on others for most activities of daily living

Menopausal hormone therapy (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

Low doses of estrogen, which is often combined with progestin (synthetic form of progesterone) taken to counter the effects of declining estrogen levels. - BENEFITS: fewer hot flashes, stronger bones, better cholesterol levels - RISKS: risk of stroke, heart attack, dementia, breast cancer

What is the leading cause of functional blindness in older adults?

Macular degeneration

What are some retinal changes in the eye that may occur in older adults?

Macular degeneration and retinal degeneration from diabetes.

What are the psychological implications of changes in the brain?

Maintaining body temperature is essential to good health. Getting good sleep is also important for good functioning.

Dual process model of intelligence

Mechanics of intelligence: the abilities that process information and solve problems, irrespective of content the area of cognition in which there is often an age-related decline Pragmatics of intelligence: the dimension of intelligence that tends to grow with age and includes practical thinking, application of accumulated knowledge and skills, specialized expertise, professional productivity, and wisdom

Aspects of Memory Self-Evaluations

Metamemory: involves knowledge about how memory works and what we believe to be true about it - There don't seem to be large age differences, except that OAs believe it declines more than YAs. + RELATED: Self-efficacy: "My memory is really good, especially compared to Martha's." - OAs report that their memory is worse now than when they were young. o We many know recall is typically harder than recognition memory strategies are often helpful, and working memory is not limitless o Most often assessed with questionnaires asking about these various facts and beliefs + Memory monitoring: refers to the awareness of what we are doing with out memory right now o At times we know how we study, search for some particular fact, or keep tract of time for an appointment

Modifying Primary Abilities

Middle-aged and older adults can be successfully taught to increase their speed of processing, and this training transfers to tasks not included in the training session Project ACTIVE: o Sherry Willis longitudinal research project named Advanced Cognitive Training for Independence and Vital Elderly o Provides answers to key questions about whether the age-related changes observed in intelligence research were inevitable of could be modified through training o Investigates the long-term effectiveness of cognitive training on enhancing mental abilities and preserving instrumental activities of daily living in older adults o Findings show cognitive training interventions improved mental abilities and daily functioning in older independent living adults o Showed positive effects of cognitive training at 5 years post-intervention for basic mental abilities, healthrelated quality of life, and improved ability to perform instrumental activities of daily living o A subgroup analysis through 2 years of follow-up suggested participants who showed mild cognitive impairment (MCI) did not benefit from memory training - they did benefit to the same degree as cognitively normal participants from training in reasoning and speed of processing o Additional findings indicate cognitive training aimed initially at improving specific primary mental abilities can also have positive effects on participants' sense of control over one's life o Conclusions: 1. There is strong evidence in the normal course of development, no one is too old to benefit from training and training reduces the rates of decline for those fluid abilities examined 2. Transfer of training occurs, but evidence is lacking that it occurs across a wide range of materials unless training involves executive functioning and working memory, when the effects generalize to many different tasks 3. Training gains are durable and last up to several years

Does the strength of those beliefs differ?

More strongly held beliefs are more likely to influence behavior.

What are the two areas that cause changes in mobility as we age?

Muscles and balance, and bones

What is the Hayflick limit?

Named after its discoverer, Leonard Hayflick suggests that the shortening of telomeres may be a major factor in cell division. - cells can only divide so many times. cells from older donors divide less than cells from younger donors.

Stereotypes:

Negative stereotypes of aging are pervasive in our culture Positive expectations coexist with negative ones: o Seen as grouchy and forgetful, losing physical stamina and sexual abilities vs. being wise, generous and responsible Content of stereotypes: o Stereotypes are a special type of social knowledge structure or social belief that represent organized prior knowledge about a group of people and that affects how we interpret new information o Older & younger adults hold similar age stereotypes (what are they?) Age stereotypes and perceived competence: o We make appraisals or attributions of older adults competence when we observe them perform tasks o Age-based double standard: **** Operating when a person considers an older person's failure in memory to be more serious than a memory failure observed in a young adult (forgetting...losing something etc.) **** Younger adults judge older adults who are forgetful more harshly than older adults do **** However, younger adults also make positive judgments about older adults being more responsible despite such memory failures Activation of stereotypes: o Implicit stereotyping: automatic (non-conscious) activation of negative stereotypes making it more likely that they will influence behavior without being aware of it o Patronizing talk (e.g. elderspeak): includes slow speech, simple vocabulary, careful enunciation, a demeaning emotional tone, and superficial conversation o Stereotyping threat: an evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group of which you belong o Stereotype lift: occurs when a privileged group is motivated to perform after exposure to an unflattering stereotype of a less advantaged group

Collaborative cognition:

Occurs when two or more people work together to solve a cognitive task Collaborating with others in recollection helps facilitate memory in older adults (Dixon et al, showed older adults working together outperform average individual in story telling and other tasks) Findings indicate that well-acquainted older couples demonstrate an expertise to develop an adaptive pattern of recalling information

Emotions as a process goal:

Older adults avoid negative information and focus more on positive information when making decisions and judgments, and when remembering events o Carstensen and Turk-Charles (1994) memory experiment (if emotion is more salient later in life, older adults will remember emotional info better)

Expertise:

Older adults compensate for poorer performance through their expertise o Expertise helps the aging adult compensate for losses in other skills Encapsulation: the processes of thinking (attention and memory) become connected to the products of thinking (knowledge about a topic)

What are some psychological implications of aging?

Older adults may compensate for aging by buying cosmetics, hair dyes, or opting for plastic surgery. Losses in strength and endurance in old age have much the same psychological effects as changes in appearance.

Age Differences in Metamemory and Memory Monitoring

Older adults seem to know less than younger adults about the internal workings of memory and its capacity, view memory as less stable, expect memory will deteriorate with age, and perceive they have less direct control over memory The Role of Memory Self-Efficacy: o Belief in oneself is referred to as memory self-efficacy; it is the belief one will be able to perform a specific task o One may know a great deal about how memory works but still believes one's ability to perform in a specific situation is poor o Emerged as one of the key aspects of metamemory because of its importance in accounting for performance in several different types of situations o Also helps to explain how people make performance predictions in the absence of direct experience with tasks o Studies show older adults with lower memory self-efficacy perform worse on memory tasks o Yet older adults with low memory self-efficacy compensate for poor memory performance by using people for assistance and compensatory strategies to aid in their memory performance Age Differences in Memory Monitoring: o The ability to monitor one's memory does not appear to decline with age o Older adults who are better at monitoring are more likely to use effective strategies and apply strategies learned in training to other, appropriate situations

How is older skin different than younger skin? & regulation body temperature

Older skin is naturally thinner and drier giving it a leathery texture, making it less effective at regulating heat or cold, and making it more susceptible to cuts, bruises and blisters. - Older people are less able to regulate their core body temperature because they have more difficulty noticing they are cold

Normal vs. Abnormal memory aging

One way to distinguish normal and abnormal changes depends on disruption of performance of daily living tasks Modern method of brain imaging can uncover visual and verbal memory losses Dementias cause marked changes in memory Temporary global amnesia (TGA): o People temporarily experience a complete loss of memory and are disoriented in time o Cause is unknown

Multidimensionality of Personal Control

Ones sense of control depends on which domain is being assessed - Ex: no changes in sense of control over ones health until 70s Also important in cognitive domains, as those who had higher sense of control over cognitive changes in later life perform better on memory tasks Maintaining a sense of control throughout adulthood is linked to better quality of social relationships, health, and cognitive functioning Also may be a protective factor for ones well being in face of declining health

Cataracts

Opaque spots on the lens of the eye.

What two diseases may result because of aging joints? Changes that limit mobility in our joints?

Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Role of Stress

Over long term, stress is very bad for your health + Most widely applied approach to stress involve: (a) focusing on the psychological responses the body makes through the nervous and endocrine systems (b) the idea that stress is what people define as stressful

Neuroscience Research and Intelligence in Young and Middle Adulthood

Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT) accounts for individual differences in intelligence as having their origins in individual differences in brain structure and function Neural efficiency hypothesis: states intelligent people process information more efficiently, showing weaker neural activations in a smaller number of areas than less intelligent people

Cognitive style as a processing goal: How we solve problems:

People with high need for closure and an inability to tolerate ambiguous situations o Prefer order and predictability o Are uncomfortable with ambiguity o Are closed-minded o Prefer quick and decisive answers It may be that limited cognitive resources and motivational differences are both age-related Declines in working memory may be related to need for closure

Multidimensionality of personal control:

Personal control is the degree to which one believes that one's performance in a situation depends on something that one personally does One's sense of control depends on which domain, such as intelligence or health, is being assessed and varies widely across domains (e.g. physical health, thoughts, life in general)

Do you think older adults in nursing homes should be allowed to engage in sexual behavior?

Possible arguments FOR: - It is a basic human need. - They are adults and should be treated as such. - Not necessarily unsafe (but see below). - Policy just based on stereotypes anyway? Possible arguments AGAINST: - Those with dementia can be taken advantage of. - Sexually transmitted diseases. - May not be physically capable. (They are in a nursing home.)

Going Beyond Formal Operations - Thinking in Adulthood

Postformal thought: is characterized by recognition that truth may vary from situation to situation, solutions must be realistic to be reasonable, ambiguity and contradiction are the rule rather than the exception, and emotion and subjective factors usually play a role in thinking + Reflective judgment. Absolute vs. Relativistic vs. Dialectical thinking. Absolute: I know what is right, because I have experience in this area. Everyone else is wrong. Relativistic: I guess others have had different experiences, which would lead to different viewpoints. Dialectical: I can see the merits of all viewpoints and merge them into a workable solution. + Reflective judgment: a way adult's reason through dilemmas involving current affairs, religion, science, personal relationships, etc. Stages of reflective judgment: o Prereflective Reasoning (stages 1-3): belief that knowledge is gained through the word of an authority figure or through firsthand observation o Quasi-Reflective Reasoning (stages 4 and 5): recognition that knowledge contain elements of uncertainty, which attribute to missing information or to methods of obtaining evidence o Reflective Reasoning (stages 6 and 7): accept that knowledge claims cannot be made with certainty, but they are not immobilized by it; rather they make judgments that are most reasonable and about which they are relatively certain Absolutist, Relativistic, and Dialectical Thinking: o Absolutist thinking involves firmly believing there is only one correct solution to problems and personal experience provides truth - adolescents and young adults think this way o Relativistic thinking involves realizing there are many sides to any issue and the right answer depends on the circumstances - young and early middle-aged adults think this way o Dialectical thinkers see the merits in the different viewpoints but synthesize them into a workable solution - later included connecting to wisdom, coping flexibility, and the ability to deal with a wide array of everyday problems effectively

Measuring intelligence:

Primary mental abilities: o Numerical facility - basic math reasoning o Word fluency - ease of verbal description o Verbal meaning - vocabulary o Inductive reasoning - facts to general concepts o Spatial orientation - ability to think in 3D o Perceptual speed - visual detail/comparisons o Verbal memory - store/recall meaningful language information Secondary mental abilities: o At least six secondary mental abilities have been found Fluid intelligence (Gf): abilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, to draw inferences, and relationships between concepts independent of knowledge and experience Crystallized intelligence (Gc): the knowledge acquired through life experience and education in a particular culture

Memory in context

Prospective memory: o Remembering to perform a planned action in the future (appointments, class) o Differences between event-based (when and external event happens) and time-based (at a fixed, particular time) future events Time-based remembering is more age related Memory processes: o Autobiographical memory: o Involves remembering information and events from our own life It is a form of episodic memory o Flashbulb memories: vivid memories of very personal or emotional events, but these are often inaccurate o Events experienced between 10 and 30 years of age are reported more often than those occurring in middle adulthood

Research Approaches to Intelligence

Psychometric approach: holds the view that some investigators have concentrated on measuring intelligence as performance an standardized tests o These tests focus on getting correct answers and tend to give less emphasis on the thought processes used to arrive at them o This approach aims at a detailed analysis of aging-associated changes in components of cognitive mechanisms and their interactions Cognitive-structural approach: researchers have been more concerned with the ways people conceptualize and solve problems than with scores on tests o Emphasize developmental changes in the modes and styles of thinking

Cross Linking

Random interaction between proteins that produce molecules that make the body stiffer.

Knowledge Accessibility and Social Judgements

Social Knowledge: when we are faced with new situations we draw on our previous experiences stored in memory The stored knowledge that might be similar and how easily we can retrieve it affects when types of social judgments we make and how we behave in situations We draw on implicit theories of personality to make judgments - They influence the impressions we form about specific individuals Not always easy to access our information - The degree to which information in memory is accessible and remembered determines the extent that information will guide social judgements and or behaviour Easy access to information is influenced by 1) The strength of the information stored in memory o Someone with a extensive past with aggressive people will have that specific trait highly assessable 2) The extent people rely on source judgments: when they try to determine the source of a particular piece of information o Older adults rely more easily on accessible knowledge o Ex: you meet Jane (an athlete) and Sereatha (bookworm who plays tennis), an older adult is more likely to remember Jane as the one who plays tennis 3) Distinguishing between true and false information o Older adults make more biases because they have trouble making this distinction o Damage or age related changes to parts of the prefrontal cortex may be responsible for increased susceptibility to false information

Long-Term Memory

Refers to the ability to remember rather extensive amounts of information from a few seconds to a few hours to decades Long-term memory represents a relatively large-capacity store where information can be kept for long periods Semantic memory: o Concerns learning and remembering the meaning of words and concepts not tied to specific occurrences of events in time Ex. Knowing the definition of words to complete cross-word puzzles o Increases from 35-55 years of age and then levels off - starts to decline at age 65 but it is less substantial than for episodic o There are no deficits is processes such as language comprehension, the structure of knowledge, and the activation of general knowledge o Retrieval typically does not tax working memory - older adults can draw upon experience in word and/or general world knowledge o Changes can happen if it becomes hard to access and retrieve If the knowledge is not used on a regular basis Momentary retrieval failure for information that is otherwise accessible o Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT): is when you try to retrieve a name or word you are certain you know, but it is not quite accessible at the moment o Older adults not only experience more TOT's, but also report less partial information about the target - suggest retrieval difficulty Episodic memory: o Is the general class of memory having to do with the conscious recollection of information from a specific event or point in time Ex. Learning the material in this course so you will be able to reproduce it on an exam o Remains fairly stable until around 55-60 years of age and then shows a precipitous decline beginning around age 65 o Recall test: people are asked to remember information without hints or cues o Recognition: involves selecting previously learned information from among several items o Older adults perform worse than younger adults on recall tests of episodic memory because they omit more information, include more intrusions, and repeat more previously recalled items o Older adults are more likely to say they recognize items that were never-presented, especially if they share a conceptual meaning or perceptual resemblance to the items actually presented o Age differences can be reduced (but not eliminated) in several ways: Allowing older adults to practice or perform a similar task before learning a new list Using material more familiar to older adults Using compensatory strategies to help themselves remember

Age differences in Encoding and Retrieval

Rehearsal: making connections between incoming information and information already known - linking Research has shown complex relation between elaboration at encoding and age o Task variables could affect encoding or retrieval, such as divided attention Use of strategies for both encoding and retrieval (older adults use less bout can be trained) o Organize o Establish links Cognitive Neuroscience Approach: o Positron emission tomography (PET) o Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Younger adults showed greater blood flow during encoding o Also evidence of compensatory brain activity for retrieval in older adults Research is important for three reasons: 1. Age related decrements are complex 2. Not due to changes in a single process 3. Theories must take individual differences into account

Primary and Secondary Mental Abilities

Researchers agreed intellectual abilities can be studied as groups of related skills organized into hypothetical constructs called primary mental abilities Related groups of primary mental abilities can be clustered into a half dozen or so broader skills termed secondary mental abilities 5 primary mental abilities: 1. Number: the basic skills underlying our mathematical reasoning 2. Word fluency: how easily we produce verbal descriptions of things 3. Verbal meaning: our vocabulary ability 4. Inductive reasoning: our ability to extrapolate from particular facts to general concepts 5. Spatial orientation: our ability to reason in the three-dimensional world Figure 7.2

Creativity

Researchers define creativity in adults as the ability to produce work that is novel, high in demand, and task appropriate The overall number of creative contributions a person makes tends to increase through one's 30s, peak in the early 40s, and decline thereafter New research shows white matter brain structures that connect distant brain regions, and coordinate cognitive control of information among them, are related to creativity and are more apparent in creative people Different areas of the prefrontal and parietal areas are responsible for different aspects of creative thinking

What is the Cross-linking Theory?

Results when certain proteins interact randomly and produce molecules that make the body stiffer. Cross-links interfere with metabolism. - Doesn't explain all aspects of aging

Self Perception and Social Beliefs

Self-Perception of Aging: individuals perceptions of their own age and aging Social stereotypes we associate with aging influence what we believe is true about us Labelling Theory - When we confront an age related stereotype, older adults are more likely to integrate it into their self-perception Resilience Theory - Confronting a negative stereotype results in a rejection of that view in favour of a more positive self perception - Like peoples tendency to want distance themselves from negative stereotype

Emphysema

Severe lung disease that greatly reduces the ability to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen.

Majority of cases of emphysema are caused by what?

Smoking; however the remaining cases are caused by a genetic deficiency of a protein known as an al-antitrypsin.

Social Context and Memory

Social communicative context or experience enhances what is most salient to the individual The social context can serve a facilitative function in older adults memory performance

Memory, Nutrition, and Drugs

Solid finding of memory enhancers are limited to studies involving animals o Several components in healthy diets are essential for well-functioning memory o Serious decrements in memory may be caused by poor diet + Drugs associated with memory problems: o Alcohol o Caffeine o Sedatives o Tranquilizers

Implicit social beliefs:

Three important considerations in understanding age differences in social belief systems: 1. Must examine specific content of social beliefs 2. Consider the strength of these beliefs to know under what conditions they may influence behavior 3. Know the likelihood that these beliefs will be activated automatically when they are violated or questioned

Training Memory Skills

Some of the best memory strategies share several things in common 1. They require paying attention to the incoming information 2. They rely on already-stored information to facilitate making new connections with the new material in semantic memory 3. In the process of encoding, strategies provide the basis for future retrieval cues E-I-E-I-O framework combines two types of memory, explicit and implicit memory, with two types of memory aids, external and internal aids External memory aids: o Are memory aids that rely on environmental resources, such as notebooks or calendars o Research indicates for external cues to be most effective, they should 1. Be given close to the time action is required 2. Be active rather than passive 3. Be specific to the particular action 4. Be portable 5. Fit a wide range of situations 6. Store many cues for long periods 7. Be easy to use 8. Not require a pen or pencil Internal memory aids: are memory aids that rely on mental processes such as imagery o Healthy older adults are less willing to use effortful internal strategies o Older adults with dementia are unlikely to benefit from these types of strategies o Spaced retrieval is one implicit-internal memory aid that involves teaching persons with dementia or other serious cognitive impairments to remember new information by gradually increasing the time between retrieval attempts Memory Drugs: o Two groups of medication receiving most of the attention are cholinesterase inhibitors o A second group of medications are memantine, target glutamate, another neurotransmitter

Source Memory and Processing of Misinformation

Source memory: o Refers to the ability to remember the source of a familiar event as well as the ability to determine if an event was imagined or actually experienced (where information originated from [e.g. self, other]) o Older adults are less accurate at a number of source-memory tasks o Younger adults are better than older at connecting the item to be remembered with the context in which it is learned o The decrements in performance happen gradually across the adult life span o If information is emotional, both younger and older adults show identical patterns of performance o DRYAD model proposes older adults are presumed to have less valid representations of events and objects than are younger adults o Neuroimaging research indicates older adults show over-activation of areas in the prefrontal cortex - a pattern reflecting compensatory behavior False memory: o Is when one remembers items or events that did not occur o Older adults tend to be more susceptible to these issues than younger adults o Older adults have more difficulty in correctly identifying information as false because they have trouble linking content information to its context o Older adults have more difficulty separating misleading context from relevant context - a large cross-sectional study of source memory with adults between 21 and 80 years revealed a linear decrease in performance, implying the decrements in performance happen gradually across the adult life span

Misinformation and memory

Source memory: ability to remember the source of a familiar event and if the event is imagined or experienced (older adults do worse) False memory: memory of items or events that did not occur o Real world concerns: older adults are more likely to believe false memories and may be scammed easier because of this

Content of Stereotypes

Stereotype: a special type of social knowledge structure or social belief - represent socially shared beliefs about characteristics and behaviours of a particular social group Affect how we interpret new information - we use them to help us process information when engaged in social interactions Guide us in our behaviour towards others from a developmental perspective we ask if there are changes in the nature and strength of our stereotypes as we grow older Age differences in how we perceive older adults The ability to estimate the age of someone by seeing their face decreases with age, but older adults are better with their age group than younger adults at judging older faces Older adults have a more positive view of aging in comparison to younger adults - holds cross culturally

The Measurement of Intelligence

Structure of intelligence: the organization of interrelated intellectual abilities Best pictured as a five-level hierarchy: o Each higher level represents an attempt to organize components of the level below in a smaller number of groups o The lowest level consists of individual test questions o These questions can be organized into tests at the second level o The third level, primary mental abilities, reflects interrelationships among performances on intelligence tests o The interrelationships uncovered among the primary mental abilities produce the secondary mental abilities at the fourth level o Finally, general intelligence at the top refers to the interrelationships among the third-order abilities Primary abilities represent theoretical relationships among tests, that in turn represent theoretical relationships among actual performance Researchers construct this theoretical hierarchy by: o First, researchers obtain people's performance on many types of problems o Second, the results are examined to determine whether performance on one type of problem predicts performance on another type of problem If the performance on one test is highly related to the performance on another, the abilities measured by the two tests are interrelated and are called a factor

STAC

Summary: - Based on idea that the age related changes in ones ability to function reflect a life long process of compensation for cognitive decline by recruiting additional brain areas - Explains how older adults build and rely on back up neural pathways

CRUNCH

Summary: - Describes how the aging brain adapts to neurological decline by recruiting additional neural circuits to perform tasks adequately - Explains how older adults show over activation of certain brain regions

HAROLD

Summary: - Explains the finding of the reduces ability f older adults in separating cognitive processing in different parts of the prefrontal cortex

The Big Picture - A life-span view:

Theories of intelligence have four concepts: o Multidimensional (many domains) o Multidirectionality (different patterns for different abilities) o Plasticity (range of ability modification) o Interindividual variability (adults differ in direction of intellectual development) The dual component model of intelligence functioning: o Mechanics of intelligence (neurophysiological architecture) o Pragmatics of intelligence (acquired bodies of knowledge embedded in culture)

What is the implication of the three biological theories of aging?

There is no unified theory for why we age. And the whole picture cannot be understood without considering other three forces of development; psychological, sociocultural, and the life cycle.

Long-term memory

The ability to remember extensive amounts of information from a few seconds to a few hours to decades Two types of systems: o Explicit or Declarative memory: deliberate conscious remembering o Implicit or Procedural memory: change in performance by exposure to information at some earlier time but not deliberately trying to remember...non-conscious memory Age differences in episodic memory: o Recall - remembering information without hints or clues (taking an essay exam or describing a movie you saw) o Recognition - choosing from among several items (multiple choice exams or choosing from a list) + Older adults perform worse that younger on tests of episodic memory recall + Differences are smaller on recognition tests + Age differences in semantic memory o No deficits related to age in processes such as language comprehension, knowledge structure, and general knowledge activation o There is age-related decline in accessibility and speed of retrieval o Tip of the Tongue (TOT) experiences

Menopause

The cessation of the release of eggs by the ovaries. - The change begins in the 40's as menstrual cycles become irregular, and by age 50 to 55 it is usually complete - Womens organs undergo progressive change after menopause, the vaginal walls SHRINK and become thinner, the size of the vagina DECREASES, vaginal lubrication is REDUCED and delayed, and the external genitalia SHRINK somewhat

What is to explain for the shortening of telomeres?

The fact that telomerase is normally not present in somatic cells, so with each replication the telomeres become shorter, eventually the chromosomes become unstable and cannot replicate because the telomeres become too short, at which point the cell dies. (Hayflick limit).

What is the Free Radical Theory?

The idea is that free radicals, which are reactive chemicals, can cause cellular damage. However there is some evidence that ingesting antioxidants may postpone the appearance of some age-related diseases.

What is the Programmed-Cell-Death Theory?

The idea that aging might be programmed into our genetic code. Appears to be a function of physiological processes, the innate ability of cells to self-destruct, and the ability of dying cells to trigger key processes in other cells. There is increasing evidence that many diseases associated with aging (like Alzheimer's disease) have genetic aspects

Developmental trends in psychometric intelligence

The measurement of intelligence o The structure of intelligence: the organization of interrelated intellectual abilities Lowest level - word fluency Second level - tests Third level - primary mental abilities Fourth level - secondary mental abilities Highest level - general intelligence o Factor: the abilities measured by two interrelated tests

Presbyopia

The normative age-related loss of the ability to focus on nearby objects, usually resulting in the need for glasses.

Research approaches to intelligence:

The psychometric approach o Measuring intelligence as a score or scores on a standardized test - focus is on getting correct answers The cognitive-structural approach o Ways in which people conceptualize and solve problems emphasizing developmental changes in modes and styles of thinking

Perimenopause

The time of transition from regular menstruation to menopause.

Climacteric

The transition during which a woman's reproductive capacity ends and ovulation stops.

Impression Formation

The way we form and revise first impression about others How people use diagnostic trait information in making initial impressions of an individual and how this process varies with age + we can form impressions of people very quickly, just based on body language and mannerisms - When new information was presented after the initial positive portrayal of the target person, older adults modified their impression of the target from positive to negative - But they modified their first impression less when the negative portrayal was followed by positive information - Older adults make impressions influenced by all the information they receive - Younger adults did not show this pattern - They were more concerned with making sure the new information was consistent with their initial impression - To do so, they modified their impression to correspond with the new information regardless of whether it was positive or negative - Younger adults make their impression based on the most recent information they have Negativity Bias: - When people allow their initial negative impressions to stand despite subsequent positive information because negative information was more striking to them and thus affected them more strongly Social judgements by older adults appear to be more sensitive to the diagnosticity of the available information Older adults are more selective in the information they choose to use in forming their judgements For older adults to invest information processing resources in making a judgement, they need to be invested in the social situation Older adults are at a disadvantage when the social context is cognitively demanding - They take into consideration the relevant information but when given a time limit, they have difficulty remembering the information they need *** After watching a 30 second clip of a professor's lecture, Ss can predict actual class ratings. *** After watching 10 second "cartoon" outline of a person, Ss can predict if that person is homosexual or heterosexual. ***nJudges mannerisms predict jury decision.

The Big Picture - A Life-Span View

Theories of intelligence are multidimensional; they specify many domains of intellectual abilities This perspective asserts intellectual decline may be seen with age but stability and growth in mental functioning also can be seen across adulthood Multidirectionality: is the first concept that refers to the distinct patterns of change in abilities over the life span, with these patterns differing for different abilities + There seems to be different domains of intellectual ability. - Memory - Reasoning - Attention - Perceptual speed - etc. +But, does that mean that there isn't some general factor underlying all of those more specific abilities? *** In other words, is there something that makes people who have good memory also have good reasoning ability (for example - Different abilities develop and decline at different rates. *** For example, fluid intelligence declines rapidly while crystallized intelligence does not decline until much later. Plasticity: the second concept, refers to the range of functioning within an individual and the conditions under which a person's abilities can be modified within a specific age range o Current studies examining brain plasticity and behavior find experience alters the brain across the life span o Reuter-Lorenz found older and young adults show different activation patterns in the brain when they perform cognitive tasks Interindividual variability: the last concept, acknowledges adults differ in the direction of their intellectual development - Research is often based on averages, and often does not emphasize individual differences (variability) in abilities, or change in abilities. - In reality, with respect to developmental trajectories, different people have different starting points (e.g. better memory or poorer memory than average) and will experience declines at different rates. Baltes proposed the dual-component model of intellectual functioning Mechanics of intelligence: the first component, concerns the neurophysiological architecture of the mind o This architecture provides the bases for cognitive abilities, including basic forms of thinking associated with information processing and problem solving such as reasoning, spatial orientation, or perceptual speed o Intellectual change is greatest during childhood and adolescence Pragmatic intelligence: the second component, concerns acquired bodies of knowledge available from and embedded within culture o It includes everyday cognitive performance and human adaptation o Abilities include verbal knowledge, wisdom, and practical problem solving o Pragmatic intellectual growth dominates adulthood

Telomeres

Tips of the chromosomes that shorten with each replication.

Understanding Age Differences in Social Beliefs

Two developmental questions arise with respect to our social knowledge structures 1) Does the content of our social knowledge and beliefs change as we age 2) How do our knowledge structures and beliefs affect our social judgements, memory, problem solving etc. Understanding age differences in social belief systems has 3 important aspects 1) We examine the specific content of social beliefs 2) We consider the strength of these beliefs to know under what conditions they may influence behaviour 3) We need to know the likelihood these beliefs are automatically activated when a person is confronted with a situation when they are violated or questioned How strongly individuals hold beliefs may vary as a function of how particular generations were socialized Social cognition argues there are individual differences in strength of social representations of rules, beliefs and attitudes linked to specific situations Age differences found in the types of social rules evoked in different types of situations

Memory and physical & mental health

Two disorders that distort thought process and memory: o Depression o Dementia Depression can interfere with learning and recall o Research shows that negative effects of depression are greater in young and middle aged adults than in older adults

Social knowledge structures and beliefs:

Understanding age differences in social beliefs o Age differences were found in the types of social rules evoked in different types of situations The belief "Marriage is more important than a career" increases with age Compare with "The marriage was already in trouble" which has an inverted U-shaped relationship o Cohort differences can be profound Self-perception of aging: individuals perceptions of their own age and aging o The social stereotypes we hold about aging influence what we believe about ourselves Two frameworks for this influence: o Labeling theory: when confronting an age-related stereotype, older adults are more likely to integrate into their self-perception o Resilience theory: confronting a negative stereotype results in a rejection of that view

Denny's model of unexercised and optimally exercised abilities:

Unexercised ability: the ability to normal, healthy adult would exhibit without practice or training; what we don't or can't practice (fluid intelligence) Exercised ability: the ability a normal, healthy adult would demonstrate under the best conditions of training or practice; abilities that improve with experience (crystallized intelligence) + both decline, but unexercised ability declines more, and then greater reliance is placed on exercised abilities to compensate

Age Stereotypes and Perceived Competence

We also make appraisals or attributions of older adults competence when observing them perform tasks Memory competence is the more susceptible to negative stereotyping than any other attribution of aging Age-based double standard: + This is demonstrated when we dismiss a particular behavior in a young person as being due to a lack of attention, for example, but attribute the same behavior to senility when seen in an older adult + Fortunately, we don't always seem to apply this when it comes to real-world situations. - Erber & colleagues: Age of applicant X Forgetfulness design. - S's had more confidence in Non-forgetful applicants, regardless of age. - Is operating when an individual attributes an older persons failure in memory as more serious than a memory failure observed in a younger adults - Think the cause was due to greater mental difficulty in the case of older adults, when for younger its attributed to not paying attention or lack of effort Study found that people had more confidence in and would assign tasks or jobs to nonforgetful people irrespective of age Being able to have assess to positive traits may compensate for forgetfulness - When more individualized information is provided and the individual is considered in a social setting, people consider more than just negative trait based stereotypes in making social judgements

Problem solving:

We use our intellectual abilities to solve problems o Some people are better than others at problem solving o Why is that? Could it have to do with the kinds of abilities we use regularly vs. the ones we use only occasionally?

For women when are the benefits of taking calcium supplements greater?

When they are taken before menopause.

Knowledge accessibility and social judgments:

When we are faced with new situations we draw on our previous experiences stored in memory To do so: o Social knowledge structures must be available to guide behavior o Social information must also be accessible to guide behavior

When does our respiratory system's ability to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide begin to decline?

When we are in our 20's. Yet endurance can actually be better when we are older (up to a point).

Does research prove that significantly reducing the number of calories animals and people eat, may increase longevity?

Yes, however research shows that longer lives do not always result from restricting calories. Indicating that the effectiveness is inconsistent.

Does immune system function decline?

Yes.

Decision-making:

Younger adults make decisions quicker than older adults Older adults: o Search for less information to arrive at a decision o Require less information to arrive at a decision o Rely on easily accessible information

Poker Smell Test

according to several studies, people with Alzheimer's disease can only identify only 60% (percent) of the odors indentified by age-matched control participants; in more advanced stages of the disease, this further declined to only 40% compared with controls

Cardiovascular Disease

more than 30% (percent) U.S. people currently have some form of cardiovascular disease - rates for men are higher, until age 75 for coronary heart disease - For women Higher for stroke - African Americans, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians have the highest rates of hypertension (high blood pressure; we will consider this condition a bit later), and Asian Americans have the lowest rate of heart disease

Balance

most of us get information about balance mainly from the vestibular system, housed deep in the inner ear, but the eyes provide important cues, too. - increases in body sway, the natural movement of the body to maintain balance occur with increasing age

Describe the different types of hearing aids

o Analog hearing aid: a mold is placed on the outer ear to pick up sound and send it through a tube to a microphone. o Digital hearing aid: Similar to analog but digital aids use directional microphones to control the flow of sound. o Cochlear implants: The main difference between implants and hearing aids is that implants do not make the sound louder.

What are some of the different changes in appearance that occur as we age?

o Hair changes o Skin changes o Body build changes o Changes in voice o Changes in mobility

The Eyes

send signals to the back of the brain (the occipital cortex) and provide visual cues about maintaining balance - importantly, changes in the white matter in the frontal cortex and in the occipital cortex that occur with age have been shown to be related to difficulty in maintaining proper balance

Dependent Life Expectancy

simply living a long time

Core Issues in Development

• 4 main issues occupy most of the discussion 1) Nature vs. Nurture 2) Stability vs. Change 3) Continuity vs. Discontinuity 4) Universal vs. Context-Specific