14.5 New Cognitive Development

You have learned that most older adults maintain adequate intellectual power. Some losses—in rapid reactions, for instance—are quite manageable, and only a minority of elders develops NCD. But the life-span perspective holds that gains as well as losses occur at every period. Are there cognitive gains in late adulthood? Yes! New depth, enhanced creativity, and even wisdom are possible.

Erikson and Maslow

Both Erik Erikson and Abraham Maslow were particularly interested in the elderly, interviewing older people to understand their views. Erikson’s final book, Vital Involvement in Old Age (Erikson et al., 1986), written when he was in his 90s, was based on responses from other 90-year-olds—the cohort who had been studied since they were babies in Berkeley, California.

Erikson found that many older people gained interest in the arts, in children, and in human experience as a whole. He said elders are “social witnesses,” aware of the interdependence of the generations as well as of all of human experience. His eighth stage, integrity versus despair, is the time when life comes together in a “re-synthesis of all the resilience and strengths already developed” (Erikson et al., 1986).

Maslow maintained that older adults are more likely than younger people to reach the highest stage of development, self-actualization. Remember that Maslow rejected an age-based sequence of life, refusing to confine self-actualization to the old. Some youth might already be self-actualizers and some elders might still be at earlier steps of Maslow’s hierarchy, seeking love or success. However, Maslow also believed that life experience helps people move forward, so more of the old reach the final stage.

The stage of self-actualization is characterized by aesthetic, creative, philosophical, and spiritual understanding (Maslow, 1970). A self-actualized person might have a deeper spirituality than ever; or might be especially appreciative of nature; or might find life more amusing, laughing often at himself or herself. Studies of centenarians find that they often have a deep spiritual grounding and a surprising sense of humour—surprising, that is, if one has the ageist view that older people have little to laugh about.

Aesthetic Sense and Creativity

For many, old age can be a time of emotional sensory awareness and enjoyment (R. N. Butler et al., 1998). For that reason, some of the elderly take up gardening, bird watching, sculpting, painting, or making music, even if they have never done so before.

An example of late creative development is the American artist Anna Moses, who was a farm wife in rural New York. For most of her life, she expressed her artistic impulses by stitching quilts and embroidering in winter, when farm work was slow. At age 75, arthritis made needlework impossible, so she took to “dabbling in oil.” Four years later, three of her paintings, displayed in a local drugstore, caught the eye of a New York City art dealer who happened to be driving through town. He bought them, drove to her house, and bought 15 more. The following year, at age 80, “Grandma Moses” had a one-woman show, receiving international recognition for her unique “primitive” style. She continued to paint for 20 years, changing her style considerably over that time. Anna Moses died at age 101.

Creativity and the Mind Creative activity may improve the intellect, especially when it involves social activity. Both the man playing the sousaphone in a band in Cuba (left) and the woman in a ceramics class in France (right) are gaining much more than the obvious lung or hand exercise.

RODRIGO TORRES/GLOWIMAGES/CORBIS
PIERRE BESSARD/REA/REDUX

Other well-known artists continue in late adulthood, sometimes producing their best work. Michelangelo painted the awe-inspiring frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at age 75; Verdi composed the opera Falstaff when he was 80; Frank Lloyd Wright completed the design of New York City’s Guggenheim Museum when he was 91.

In a study of extraordinarily creative people, almost none felt that their ability, their goals, or the quality of their work had been much impaired by age. The leader of that study observed, “In their seventies, eighties, and nineties, they may lack the fiery ambition of earlier years, but they are just as focused, efficient, and committed as before…perhaps more so” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

The creative impulse is one that family members and everyone else should encourage in the elderly, according to many professionals. Expressing one’s creativity and aesthetic sense is said to aid in social skills, resilience, and even brain health (McFadden & Basting, 2010).

The same can be said for the life review, in which elders provide an account of their personal journey by writing or telling their story. They want others to know their history, telling not solely about themselves but also about their family, cohort, or ethnic group. A leading gerontologist wants us to listen:

Wisdom

In a massive international survey of 26 nations, at least one on each inhabited continent, researchers found that most people everywhere agree that wisdom is a characteristic of the elderly (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). One reviewer contends that “wise elders might become a valuable asset for a more just and caring future society” (Ardelt, 2011). Yet another reviewer offers a different opinion: The idea that older people are wise is a “hoped-for antidote to views that have cast the process of aging in terms of intellectual deficit and regression” (Labouvie-Vief, 1990). Contrary to people’s wishes and opinions, most objective research finds that wisdom does not necessarily increase with age. Starting at age 25 or so, some adults of every age are wise, but most, even at age 80, are not (Ardelt, 2011).

An underlying research quandary is that a universal definition of wisdom is elusive: Each culture and each cohort has its own concept, with fools sometimes seeming wise (as in many Shakespearean plays). Older and younger adults differ in how they make decisions; one interpretation of these differences is that the older adults are wiser, but not every younger adult would agree (Worthy et al., 2011).

One summary describes wisdom as an “expert knowledge system dealing with the conduct and understanding of life” (P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2008). Several factors just mentioned, including the ability to put aside one’s personal needs (as in self-actualization), self-reflective honesty (as in integrity), and perspective on past living (the life review), are considered part of wisdom. If this is true, the elderly have a head start in becoming wise, particularly if they have dedicated their lives to the “understanding of life,” are willing and able to learn from their experiences, and have become more mature and integrated in the process (Ardelt, 2011). Probably for that reason, philosophers, psychologists, and the general public connect wisdom with old age: That may be why popes and Supreme Court judges are usually quite old.

The popular consensus may be grounded in reality. Two psychologists explain:

These researchers posed life dilemmas to adults of various ages and asked others (who had no clue as to how old the participants were) to judge whether the responses were wise. They found that wisdom is rare at any age, but, unlike physical strength and cognitive quickness, wisdom does not fade with maturity. Thus, some people of every age were judged as wise.

Similarly, the author of a detailed longitudinal study of 814 people concludes that wisdom is not reserved for the old, and yet humour, perspective, and altruism increase over the decades, gradually making people wiser. He then wrote:

The Centenarians

If age brings integrity, creativity, and maybe even wisdom, then the oldest-old should excel in many ways and those who reach age 100 and beyond should be best of all. Is there any evidence that this is true?

Other Places, Other StoriesIn the 1970s, three remote places—one in the Republic of Georgia, one in Pakistan, and one in Ecuador—were in the news because many vigorous old people were found to live there, with several over 100 years old. One researcher described people 90 and older:

A more comprehensive study (Pitskhelauri, 1982) found that the lifestyles in all three of these regions were similar in four ways:

1. Diet. People ate mostly fresh vegetables and herbs, with little meat or fat. They thought it better to be a little bit hungry than too full.
2. Work. Even the very old did farm work, household tasks, and child care.
3. Family and community. The elderly were well integrated into families of several generations and interacted frequently with friends and neighbours.
4. Exercise and relaxation. Most took a walk every morning and evening (often up and down mountains), napped midday, and socialized in the evening.

Perhaps these factors—diet, work, social interaction, and exercise—lengthened life.

Guess Their Age America’s Besse Cooper (left) was 114 and Japan’s Jiroemon Kimura (right) was 112 when these photos were taken. Besse was believed to be the oldest person in the world when she died at age 116 in 2012, and Jiroemon, who died in 2013, also at the age of 116, was the first man verified to have lived so long. Some of the reasons for longevity are visible: genes (note their smooth skin), caregivers (note Besse’s carefully coiffed hair and Jiroemon’s pristine white shirt), technology (glasses and hearing aid), and attitude (proud smiles). Not visible is their independence (Besse lived alone on a Georgia farm from ages 67 to 105) or many descendants (over 60 for Jiroemon).

ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

The Truth About Life After 100Insights gained from the studies of the three regions famous for long-lived humans have been questioned because many of those studied lacked verifiable birth or marriage records. Their claims of being centenarians are now thought to have been exaggerated, and researchers who believed them are thought to have been too eager to accept the idea that life would be long and wonderful if only the ills of modern civilization could be avoided (Thorson, 1995).

Religious Devotion Many of the oldest men of Mali are revered for their spirituality, as this elder Muslim is.

SEAN CAFFREY/LONELY PLANET IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

As for preventing the ills of old age, it does seem that exercise, diet, and social integration add a few years to the average life, but not decades. It is important to distinguish the average life span from the maximum.

Genes seem to bestow on every species an inherent maximum life span, defined as the oldest possible age for members of that species (Wolf, 2010). Under ideal circumstances, the maximum that rats live seems to be 4 years; rabbits, 13; tigers, 26; house cats, 30; brown bats, 34; brown bears, 37; chimpanzees, 55; Indian elephants, 70; finback whales, 80; humans, 122; lake sturgeon, 150; giant tortoises, 180.

Maximum life span is quite different from average life expectancy, which is the average life span of individuals in a particular group. In human groups, average life expectancy varies a great deal, depending on historical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors as well as on genes (Sierra et al., 2009). Recent increases in life expectancy are attributed to the reduction in deaths from adult diseases (heart attack, pneumonia, cancer, childbed fever).

In Canada from 2007 to 2009, average life expectancy at birth was about 79 years for men and 83 years for women. That is much longer than from 1980 to 1982, when the average life expectancy for men was 72 years and for women 79 years (Statistics Canada, 2012c). How long can average life expectancy keep increasing?

Gerontologists are engaged in a debate as to whether the average life span will keep rising and whether the maximum is genetically fixed and our society has just about reached that (Couzin-Frankel, 2011b). The longest well-documented life ended at age 122, when Jeanne Calment died in southern France in 1997. No one has yet been proven to have outlived her, despite documented birth dates for a billion people who have died since then.

Everyone agrees, however, that the last years of life can be good ones. Those who study centenarians find many quite happy (Jopp & Rott, 2006). Jeanne Calment enjoyed a glass of red wine and some olive oil each day. “I will die laughing,” she said.

Disease, disability, depression, and neurocognitive disorder may eventually set in; studies disagree about how common these problems are past age 100. Some studies find a higher rate of physical and mental health problems before age 100 than after. For example, in Sweden, where medical care is free, researchers found that centenarians were less likely to take antidepressants, but more likely to use pain medication, than those who were aged 80 or so (Wastesson et al., 2012).

Could centenarians be happier than octogenarians, as these Swedish data suggest? That is not known. However, it is true that more and more people live past 100, and many of them are energetic, alert, and optimistic (Perls, 2008; Poon, 2008). Social relationships in particular correlate with robust mental health (Margrett et al., 2011). Centenarians tend to be upbeat about life. Whether their attitude is justified is not clear. Remember, however, that ageism affects all of us. As explained in the beginning of this chapter, ageism shortens life and makes the final years less satisfying. Don’t let it. As thousands of centenarians demonstrate, a long life can be a happy one.