Chapter 24 Summary

1. The human brain continues to add new cells and to grow new dendrites as people age, but it also becomes smaller and slower. The effects of senescence are apparent not only in motor skills (such as speed of walking) but also in cognitive skills (such as how quickly an older adult remembers a name).
2. Remarkable plasticity is also apparent, with wide variation from person to person in the rate and specifics of brain slowdown. In general, older adults use more of their brains, not less, to do various tasks, and they prefer doing one task at a time, not multitasking.

3. The senses become less acute with age, making it difficult for older people to register stimuli. Memory is slower, but there are many types of memory, each with a distinct trajectory. Source and prospective memory are less accurate but memory for semantics, emotions, and automatic skills may be strong.
4. Control processes are less effective with age, as retrieval strategies become less efficient. Anxiety may prevent older people from using the strategies they need.
5. In daily life, most of the elderly are not seriously handicapped by cognitive difficulties. The need for ecologically valid, real-life measures of cognition is increasingly apparent to developmental scientists.

6. Neurocognitive disorders (NCD), formerly (and now informally) called dementia, are characterized by cognitive loss—at first minor lapses, then more serious impairments, and finally major losses. Even recognition of family members, or remembering how to eat or talk, may fade.
7. The most common cause of cognitive loss among the elderly in the United States is Alzheimer disease, an incurable ailment that worsens over time, as plaques and tangles increase.
8. Vascular disorders (also called multi-infarct dementia) result from a series of ministrokes (transient ischemic attacks, or TIAs) that occur when impairment of blood circulation destroys portions of brain tissue.
9. Other NCDs, including frontal lobe and Lewy body disorders, also become more common with age. Parkinson’s disease reduces muscle control, and it can also cause neurocognitive problems, particularly in the old. Many other diseases also affect the brain.
10. NCD may be mistakenly diagnosed when the individual is actually suffering from a reversible problem. Malnutrition, anxiety, depression, drug addiction, and polypharmacy are among the reasons an older person might seem to be cognitively impaired. These symptoms can disappear if the problem is recognized and treated.

11. Older adults can and often do continue to learn as they age. Training and practice can increase cognitive skills and control processes in the aged. Surprising to some is the fact that one effective kind of training involves video games.
12. Many people become more interested and adept in creative endeavors, as well as more philosophical, as they grow older. The life review is a personal reflection that many older people undertake, remembering earlier experiences, putting their entire lives into perspective, and achieving integrity or self-actualization.
13. Wisdom does not necessarily increase as a result of age, but some elderly people are unusually wise or insightful. Learning from experience can occur at any age, but the old have an advantage in that they have had many experiences.