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Chapter 17
Life-span MRU Chapter 17
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Gerontology | the scientific study of aging |
| Life Expectancy and Longevity | - Life expectancy varies with gender and (strangely) with age – Gender gap was 7.1 years in 1981, but is less than 5 years now - Genetics are believed to account for 20-30% of variation in longevity |
| Subgroups | • Young old – 60-75 • Old old – 75-85 • Oldest old – 85 and over • Oldest old is the fastest-growing segment |
| Senescence | physical changes and declines associated with aging |
| Hayflick limit | each species is subject to a genetically programmed time limit after which cells no longer have any capacity to replicate themselves accurately |
| More of a ____ on the number of _______, which seems to be about ___ in human cells | More of a limit on the number of replications, which seems to be about 50 in human cells |
| Reduction in _________ with each cell division | Reduction in telomeres with each cell division |
| Telomere | string of repetitive DNA at the tip of each chromosome in the body that appears to serve as a kind of timekeeping mechanism |
| Cellular Damage: Breaks in DNA are fairly common | – An organism repairs them, but isn’t typically able to repair all – Over time, unrepaired breaks accumulate |
| Cellular Damage: Cross-linking | -- the formation of undesirable bonds between proteins or fats – Happens more often in older than in younger adults – Negative impact on the functioning of the wrongly-bound molecules |
| Free radicals | -- molecules or atoms that possess an unpaired electron – Normal by-product of body metabolism – Can enter into potentially harmful chemical reactions, resulting in irreparable cellular damage that accumulates with age |
| __________ ________ are more _____ in _______ people’s bodies due to age-related deterioration of the ____________ | – More common in older people’s bodies due to age-related deterioration of the mitochondria |
| Free radicals appear to be | – Increased by foods high in fat and/or food additives – Decreased by antioxidants (i.e., eat foods high in vitamins A, C, and E |
| Define Stem Cells | are undifferentiated cells that are capable of self-renewal and differentiation into specialized adult cells |
| Stem Cell Patterns | – Some stem cells decrease in number over time – Stem cells may become damaged with age |
| Self-rated Health in Older Adults | – Are more likely to rate their health as good or excellent than poor, BUT – Are more likely to rate their health as poor than are young and middle-aged adults – Recover faster from illness if their self- rated health is higher |
| Functional status | a measure of an individual’s ability to perform certain roles and tasks, particularly self-help tasks and other chores of daily living |
| Activities of daily living (ADLs) | self- help tasks such as bathing, dressing, and using the toilet |
| Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) | more complex daily living tasks such as doing housework, cooking, and managing money |
| Limitations on Activities: Frail elderly | seniors whose physical and/or mental impairments are so extensive that they cannot care for themselves |
| Unsurprisingly, you’re likely to live longer if you | – Don’t smoke – Maintain a healthy weight – Exercise regularly |
| Exercise, in particular, is linked with | – Lower rates of heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, gastrointestinal problems, and arthritis – Better muscle strength and motor skills – Less height loss in late adulthood – Lower incidence of dementia and cognitive impairment |
| a longer life is linked with | exercise |
| The Brain and Nervous System: 4 Main Brain Changes | – Reduction in brain weight – Loss of grey matter – Decline in the density of dendrites, which leads to less synaptic plasticity – Slower synaptic transmission speed |
| Synaptic plasticity | the redundancy in the nervous system that ensures that it is nearly always possible for a nerve impulse to move from one neuron to another or from a neuron to another type of cell (e.g., a muscle cell) |
| Vision | • Presbyopia is common in older adults • Blood flow to the eye decreases enlarging the blind spot • Accommodation of the pupil decreases and slows, so adjusting to different levels of light is more difficult |
| A significant ________ of older adults develop _________, _________, or ________ ________ | A significant minority of older adults develop cataracts, glaucoma, or macular degeneration |
| Hearing | Gradual wear-and-tear hearing loss that begins in middle adulthood may reach the “breaking point” of creating functionally significant loss in late adulthood |
| Hearing loss is more common in _______, possibly because of greater likelihood of a _____ _______ ___________ | Hearing loss is more common in men, possibly because of greater likelihood of a noisy work environment |
| Hearing | - High-frequency sounds are usually lost first • Word discrimination and problems hearing under noisy conditions are usually next • Increased incidence of tinnitus with age |
| After age ____, sounds in the speech range usually have to _________ about 1-2 decibels per year to be heard | After age 60, sounds in the speech range usually have to increase about 1-2 decibels per year to be heard |
| Taste | – Major taste types remain – Less saliva may produce a “woolly mouth” sensation – Flavours may seem blander, but this could be due to smell |
| Smell | – Sense of smell declines rapidly after age 60 – More decline in men than women – More decline in people who have worked in factories |
| Touch | – Less responsiveness to heat and cold, beginning with extremities (especially feet) |
| Define: Dementia | a neurological disorder involving problems with memory and thinking that affect an individual’s emotional, social, and physical functioning |
| Facts about Dementia | – Most forms are irreversible – Should not be considered a “normal” part of aging |
| Define: Alzheimer’s Disease | a very severe form of dementia, the cause of which is unknown |
| Alzheimer’s Disease | – Early symptoms are usually subtle and slow to escalate – Then memory for recent events starts to fail – Eventually, can’t recognize loved ones, care for self, communicate with others – Trouble controlling emotions and processing emotions of others |
| Difficulty in diagnosing Alzheimer Disease because | – Early symptoms difficult to distinguish from normal declines in memory functioning – Neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques can’t be observed in a living brain |
| Treating Alzheimer’s Disease | • Drugs like galantamine, which increase amounts of some neurotransmitters, seem to slow down the progress of Alzheimer’s • Anti-inflammatory drugs and antioxidant supplements are a possible treatment and prevention |
| Performance on ______ tasks can sometimes be improved by strategy use | • Performance on memory tasks can sometimes be improved by strategy use |
| Heredity and Alzheimer’s Disease | • Genetics seem to be important for some cases of Alzheimer’s • Wide variations in severity and age of onset in families with high prevalence of Alzheimer’s |
| Chromosome 19 | contains a gene that controls production of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s, but doesn’t single- handedly determine whether or not someone develops the disease |
| Dementia can also be caused by | – Depression – Metabolic disturbances – Drug intoxication – Parkinson’s disease – Hypothyroidism – Multiple blows to the head – A single head trauma – Some tumours – Vitamin B12 deficiency – Anemia – Alcohol abuse |
| Incidence of Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias | • About 1/11 Canadians over 65 show significant signs of some form of dementia – Almost 2/3 of older adults with dementia have Alzheimer’s • Rates of dementias rise rapidly among people in their 70s and 80s |
| Depression in older adults | – May be seen as “old person grumpiness” – May be mistaken for dementia because it can cause confusion & memory loss – May go untreated even if diagnosed because health care professionals don’t always offer effective treatments to older adults |
| Important to distinguish among | – Clinical depression – Depressed mood – Geriatric dysthymia, or chronic depressed mood in older adults |
| Diagnosis can be complicated by the fact that seniors | – Are more likely to go to medical centres than to mental health centres – Often focus on physical symptoms rather than feelings – May be misdiagnosed with dementia, because depression can cause confusion and memory loss |
| Major risk factors include | – Inadequate social support – Inadequate income – Emotional loss – Health problems |
| Suicide | • Suicide slightly less common in older adults than younger • Elderly men are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than elderly women |
| Suicide Risk Factors | – Sense of hopelessness – Unemployment – Psychological disorders – Alcoholism – Social isolation – Poor physical health |
| Prevention and Interventions | • Helping physical health may be a good prevention – Keeping people informed of best treatments for debilitating arthritis, for instance • Exercise • Social involvement, particularly activities with children, may improve emotional states |
| Involvement in ________ may be protective | religion |
| Psychotherapy often recommended | Usually most effective when combined with antidepressants |
| Use of antidepressants with older adults can be dicey | – Can interfere with life-sustaining drugs that are fairly common for older adults – Correlated with increased incidence of falls among institutionalized elderly |
| Memory | Forgetfulness becomes more frequent with age, but memory works in the same way |
| Memory tasks | – Recognition easier than recall – Tasks requiring speed are harder – Metamemory and metacognition skills are important |
| Short-term memory capacity | begins some decline in middle adulthood, but tends to become more noticeable after about age 60 |
| retrospective memory | Younger adults outperform older adults |
| prospective memory | Younger adults do better than older adults on prospective memory tasks in laboratory settings but worse in natural settings (can't take notes/use reminders in lab) |
| Strategy Learning: Research Suggests | – The tendency to apply some cognitive strategies automatically may decline with age – Some cognitive strategies may take longer for older adults to learn and execute than for younger adults |
| Everyday Memory | Younger adults outperform older adults on tasks such as remembering main points of a story or conversation, remembering information from a medicine label, remembering whether or not they’ve done something |
| Task-specific knowledge | makes a difference; less impairment on tasks when they have a lot of knowledge to start with |
| Preliminary Explanations: Some possible contributors | – Changes in the ratio of grey to white matter – Reduction in hippocampal volume – General decrease in processing speed – Changes in attention strategies that lead to less effective processing of information |
| Mental Exercise: Studies With Rats | suggest that older adults who keep challenging themselves can delay or prevent decline in brain mass |
| Mental Exercise: Humans, studies are clouded by | – Self-selection – Confounds with education, social class, and health |
| Define: Wisdom | a hypothesized cognitive characteristic of older adults that includes accumulated knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to practical problems of living |
| Wisdom Facts | – Often thought of as age-related, but seems to be more related to experience and intelligence – This is one skill that at least doesn’t seem to decline with age, though |
| Baltes suggests 5 criteria central to wisdom for solving practical life problems | – Factual knowledge – Procedural knowledge – Understanding of relevance of context – Understanding relevance of values – Recognition that it is impossible to know in advance how any decision will ultimately affect one’s life |
| Cohen suggests a four-stage theory of mid- to late-life creativity (list them) | – Re-evaluation phase – Liberation phase – Summing-up phase – Encore phase |
| Re-evaluation phase | - at about age 50 - reflecting on past accomplishments and formulating new goals - leads to an intensification of the desire to create and produce |
| Liberation phase | - 60s, - become freer to create due to retirement - increased tolerance for their own failures |
| Summing-up phase | - 70s, - desire to knit their accomplishments together into a cohesive, meaningful story - view older accomplishments in terms of how they fed into later achievements |
| Encore phase | - 80s and beyond, - desire to complete unfinished works or to fulfill desires that have been put aside in the past |
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