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cognitive impairment of old age
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Some people belief that when they are old, their cognition will decrease, especially in decision-making and learning new things. On the contrary, older people have a wise brain and perfect skill because different skill of Cognition which is the process of knowing and understanding (longman dictionary) will peak at different time, some is soon while some take a longer time. Besides as people are ageing they have more experience as well as more knowledge to increase their ability to learn, that why we have a sayings like” the older, the wiser”. Furthermore, our brain is working as the same as our skin or body if only they take care of their brain in the right way they can keep their brains sharp for a certain extra time.On the other hand, people …show more content…
Cognition is a process which is not just about thinking quickly and making risky decision but also includes the vocabulary skill, thinking critically, analyze data, problem solving, emotion recognition. For example: vocabulary skill usually peaks at 60s. Language is interesting but not easy to learn. It’s not a problem to learn a word, we can learn it for one or two seconds. However, when we learn 10, 100, 1000 or more words it truly a big problem. One of varieties skills which improve when we are old is critical thinking which is a very important skill in every aspects. Critical thinking depends on each person, because each of us has different knowledge, background, experience, and the ability to think but this skill can be trained if people focus more on it. Critical thinking usually peaks at 60s or early 70s, the same for analyze and solving problem (Jenna Birch, 2015). When people are old they are considered that their cognition become slowly gradually . Therefore, to make up for their shortage they use their critical thinking, solving problem skill… to from a strategy, carefully make a plan, look at different aspect to make decisions which are mostly right and effective. If there brain decline they are definitely unable to do these complicated
There are profound effects of ageism that can be harmful to a patient’s overall health. Ageism can cause physicians to consistently treat older patients unequally compared to younger adults. Unequal treatment can be divided into the under-treatment of symptoms and the over-treatment of symptoms. The imbalance in how a physician would treat a geriatric patient is ageist because the older adult is not getting fair treatment in every case. Under-treatment and over-treatment are different; however, they are both equally as harmful to a patients health.
The term “ageism” is not easily understood by most of the population because of its acceptance as normal behavior due to the ingrained attitudes that most people develop in their youth, but health care workers must fully embrace the term within their profession in order to avoid becoming a contributor to the historical prevalence of prejudices and discrimination. The term ageism is defined by Klein and Liu (2010) as “the discrimination of individuals based solely on age” (p. 334). “Ageism is a social construct that is internalized in the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of individuals” (Klein & Liu, 2010, p. 334). Robert Butler, a well-known gerontologist, coined the term “ageism” citing that the discrimination and prejudice associated with this term is often based on the lack of a person’s experience with older people (Ferrini & Ferrini, 2013, p. 6). Ferrini and Ferrini (2013) refer to the strong influence that cultural beliefs and attitudes as well as a person’s current age influence the perception of aging (p. 6). Everywhere within society there are influences that encourage ageist attitudes such as media conveyances through movies, books, television, greeting cards, magazines and the Internet (Ferrini and Ferrini, 2013, p. 6). These negative connotations related to growing older begin to influence all people at a very young age and therefore impact their attitudes as they make career decisions. This has directly impacted the number of health care providers who specialize in geriatrics as well as the attitudes of those who do provide services for older adults. These false perceptions and negative attitudes are currently impacting the q...
The world is said to reach a population of 9.2 billion people in 2050. The economy of a country is affected in multiple ways; one of the factors affecting the progression of an economy is the life expectancy. In the past decade, the sizes of families are decreasing due to many reasons such as low fertility rates, economic reasons, high education, and etc. causing an increase in the elderly population. Over the years, the life expectancy is continuing to rise at a phenomenal rate as the technologies advance to protect myriads of lives. The increased ageing population has been putting constant pressure on the economies to provide for the sick and the unemployed. In turn, this hinders the progress of the economy. But on the contrary, the increase in older citizens in an economy has also benefitted t...
Brains and intelligence vary as much as humans do. Intellectual abilities can rise, fall, zigzag, or stay the same, depending on genes and on the specifics of each life. Intelligence is multi-directional, multi-cultural, multi-contextual, and plastic. Generally, brain functioning is maintained: if you think deep and clearly at age 20 you will probably do so at age 60.
Saul Mcleod wrote an article on Erick Eriksons stages of development and he wrote that in the final stage people are faced with what is called “ego integrity Vs. Despair” which in return results in wisdom. He articulates that “As we grow older (65+ yrs) and become senior citizens, we tend to slow down our productivity, and explore life as a retired person. It is during this time that we contemplate our accomplishments and are able to develop integrity if we see ourselves as leading a successful life.” Parisi Jeanine looked into Ericson’s final stage and compose an extensive definition of wisdom which includes “the wisdom involves seeking out difficult or complex problems, applying prior knowledge, and making sound and executable judgments, often toward the goal of achieving a common good.” Both Saul Mcleod and Parisi Jeanine are indicting that the sense of wisdom is not something that is obtained in the early stages of life but rather in the last stage of life in our old age. This is an important point because it is demonstrating that wisdom is something that is only obtained with old age which in return it leads the younger generation to respect
Since ancient times, it has been clear that some people lose mental sharpness (cognitive function) as they age. However, in 1906, the German neurologist Alois Alzheimer began an autopsy of a woman from Frankfurt, that had died after several years of progressive mental deterioration. From the accounts of the doctor, family, and friends of the woman, Alzheimer put together her mental state prior to death, and described the woman as being marked by increased confusion, disorientation, and memory loss.Taking advantage of staining techniques that had recently been established, Alzheimer noticed an odd disorganization of the nerve cells in the womanís cerebral cortex, the part of the brain...
Younger people have tended to look towards the elderly for wisdom and guidance since the beginning of recorded history and beyond. Students to teachers, children to parents, ordinary people to royalty and politicians – generally those who have lived longer are not only believed, but expected to have garnered more knowledge in their longer lives. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. Also, in 2008 the Australian newspaper published an article detailing a study undertaken by the University of Aarhus in Denmark, which disproved the theory that the mind is at its peak in the late teens to mid-twenties. But all this is not to say that older people should not sometimes listen to and heed advice from younger people.
Adults entering the midlife years (middle adulthood) are experiencing an overabundance of life changes. Hall, Hernandez, Wong, and Justice (2015) stated that, during middle adulthood important changes occur across the physical, cognitive, and social domains of development. There is a mounting amount of research on the changes that middle-aged adults experience. One of the most unexplored factor that middle-aged adults experience is Ageism. Ageism can be defined as the act of being prejudice or discriminative towards a specific age group. Although, Ageism can occur at any given place and in any age group. Research shows that it is more prevalent in older adults,
In order to avoid the physical effects of aging, it is suggested that individuals engage in frequent exercise. Doing so will enhance muscular and cardiac ability, and will reduce one’s risk of various forms of heart disease and obesity (Myers & DeWall, 2016). Due to an increase in oxygen flow, exercise may also stimulate neurogenesis (Myers & Dewall, 2016), a process that promotes growth in hippocampal nerve cells that may result in an improved ability to retain memory. In relation to physical exercise, it is also suggested that adults in middle or late adulthood participate in “brain training” exercises, which have shown to make small improvements in one’s depreciating cognitive development. As a result of the brain’s neural plasticity, such brain exercises have the potential to enhance an individual’s ability to complete control tasks, while other research indicates that it can result in an overall sharpness of the mind (Myers & DeWall, 2016). Despite the onset of an aging mind and body that is characteristic of adulthood, exercise of all forms can induce positive outcomes for older individuals in both their physical and cognitive
The cortex in the cerebrum generally diminishes as we age, a sort of decay associated with dementia. Intriguingly, the individuals who have contemplated for around one hour a day for a long time demonstrated an expanded cortical thickness (Davich, 2004). More experienced meditators likewise show diminished age-related decrease in cortical thickness as compared to non-meditators of the same age.
It was once the norm to associate a decline in one’s memory to be a part of typical aging. As it has been proven, a marked decline in cognition is an unexpected outcome of the aging process. A decline has actually been identified to be cause for concern and thus falls under the broad scope of dementia. One particular disease that falls under the umbrella of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. This is an unfortunate disorder with a hallmark symptom of gradual, ongoing, neurological decline. The disease not only consumes a person’s short term memory but eventually the long term memory as well.
According to DeBrew, author of “Can being ageist harm your older adult patients?” stereotypes and discrimination are evident in various aspects of patient care. “Ageism [is] defined as stereotyping or discrimination aimed at older adults and a lack of knowledge about normal changes of aging and presentation of illness in older adults (. . .)” (DeBrew, 2015). DeBrew (2015) states, “research findings suggest that ageism is common in healthcare” (DeBrew, 2015). Ageism is not only an issue in the healthcare setting, but also among older adults as well as their families. When ageism is present in the healthcare setting it poses
Intelligence has been commonly thought to decline as we get older, however this is a flawed belief. Countless individuals will argue that there are various cognitive processes that are associated with changes in the brain that do deteriorate with time, however there are also other brain areas that increase their activity in older age. I believe a person’s ability to perform certain tasks may become slower as they get older, but this doesn’t automatically mean that they are cognitively getting less intelligent. There are numerous ways in which intelligence can be defined, although it is commonly defined as general cognitive skills, this means that it is a mental ability involved in the capacity of learning, reasoning, perceiving relationships and analogies, understanding, facts, meanings, etc. (Dictionary definition). However Raymond Cattell (1963) argued that ‘intelligence does not generally consist of only cognitive performance’. Cattell and Horns theory developed in 1966 and emphasises that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities that interrelate to form the broad term of intelligence. The main two factors are crystallised and Fluid intelligence.
Historically, memory has been a recurring topic in cognition research. Through the years, many scientific findings have helped us to understand how memory works. Since, older adults are the subgroup most affected by frequent memory deficiencies, they would be highly benefited with the advance of the cognitive
As a person grows old, it is inevitable to have both physical and cognitive changes happen throughout their lifetime. In an average life span, a person’s physical and cognitive changes will normally vary depending on what age group they are in. For example, it is said that from birth to age five, a child will absorb more information including how to talk, language, form relationships, and fine motor skills than any other age. It is also said that that most rapid decline in physical ability is in older adults ranging from a loss in eyesight to severe dementia.