Ch 17. Physical and Cognitive Development in Late Adulthood

Question 1

Functional Age

Answer 1

Actual competence and performance (Some 80-year-olds appear younger than many 65-year-ods).

Question 2

Average life expectancy

Answer 2

The number of years that an individual born in a particular year can expect to live starting at any age.

Question 3

Average healthy life expectancy

Answer 3

The number of years a person born in a particular year can expect to live in full health, without disease or injury.

Question 4

Maximum Lifespan

Answer 4

Species-specific biological limit to the length of life (in years), corresponding to the age at which the oldest known individual died.

Question 5

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)

Answer 5

Basic self-care tasks are required to live on one’s own, such as bathing, dressing, getting in and out of bed or a chair, or eating.

Question 6

Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (LADLs)

Answer 6

Tasks necessary to conduct the business of daily life and also requiring some cognitive competence, such as telephoning, shopping, food preparation, housekeeping, and paying bills.

Question 7

Prefrontal Cortex

Answer 7

Responsible for executive function and strategic thinking. It receives sensory info, is thought to use it to plan responses, communicates to other areas of the brain to enact responses.

Question 8

Executive Functioning

Answer 8

Cognitive processing skills necessary to learn, work live: Impulse control, Emotional Control, Flexible Thinking, Working Memory, Self-Monitoring, Planning and Prioritizing, Task Initiation, Organization.

Question 9

Impulse Control

Answer 9

Ability to think before speaking, resist temptation, think about choices and consequences of behaviors before acting.

Question 10

Flexible Thinking

Answer 10

Ability to think about different ways to solve problems, adjust to new situations, learn from mistakes, cope with routing changes, try new things, switch from one task to another, and learn new things.

Question 11

Emotional Control

Answer 11

Ability to regulate emotions, choosing which emotions are appropriate. in any given situation, maintaining emotions under pressure.

Question 12

Working Memory

Answer 12

Ability to follow instructions, pay attention, use relevant information while in the middle of an activity.

Question 13

Self-Monitoring

Answer 13

Ability to have self-awareness of how one is doing in the moment to make adjustments of actions/behaviors to the current situation.

Question 14

Planning and Prioritizing

Answer 14

Ability to plan daily tasks to meet short and long-term responsibilities.

Question 15

Task Initiation

Answer 15

Ability to motivate self to begin tasks by directing behaviors and actions.

Question 16

Organization

Answer 16

Gather and keep track of information and belongings.

Question 17

Cerebral Cortex

Answer 17

The outermost layer of the brain, composed of grey matter, is often divided into sensory areas, motor areas, and association areas (planning, impulse control, and self-awareness).

Question 18

Hippocampus “sea horse”

Answer 18

Best known for its role in memory.

Question 19

Cataracts

Answer 19

Cloudy areas in the lens, resulting in foggy vision and (without surgery) eventual blindness.

Question 20

Macular Degeneration

Answer 20

When light-sensitive cells in the macula or central region of the retina, break down, older adults’ central vision blurs and gradually is lost.

Question 21

Autoimmune Response

Answer 21

When the immune system is more likely to malfunction by turning against normal body tissues.

Question 22

Sleep Apnea

Answer 22

A condition in which breathing ceases for 10 seconds or longer, resulting in many brief awakenings (especially common in people who are overweight and use alcohol heavily).

Question 23

Assistive Technology

Answer 23

An array of devices that permit people with disabilities to improve their functioning.

Question 24

Compression of morbidity

Answer 24

As life expectancy extends, we want the avg period of diminished vigor before death – especially, the number of months or years of ill-health and suffering to decrease. Medical advances and improve socioeconomic conditions are largely responsible.

Question 25

Primary Aging

Answer 25

Another term for biological aging), or genetically influenced declines that affect all members of our species and take place even in the context of overall good health.

Question 26

Secondary Aging

Answer 26

Declines due to hereditary defects and negative environmental influences, such as poor diet, lack of exercise, disease, substance abuse, environmental pollution, and psychological stress.

Question 27

Frailty

Answer 27

Involves weakened functioning of diverse organs and body systems, yielding symptoms that profoundly interfere with everyday competence - unintentional weight loss, self-reported exhaustion, muscle weakness, slow walking speed, and low physical activity. Frailty leaves older people highly vulnerable in the face of infection, extremely hot or cold weather or injury.

Question 28

Osteoarthritis

Answer 28

The most common type of arthritis, which involves deteriorating cartilage on the ends of bones of frequently used joints.

Question 29

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Answer 29

Involves the whole body. An autoimmune response leads to inflammation of connective tissue, particularly the membranes that line the joints, resulting in overall aching, inflammation, and stiffness. Cigarette smoking is the only confirmed lifestyle influence, greatly increasing risk of the disease.

Question 30

Dementia

Answer 30

Refers to a set of disorders occurring almost entirely in old age affecting many aspects of thought and behavior.

Question 31

Alzheimer’s Disease

Answer 31

The most common form of dementia, in which structural and chemical brain deterioration is associated with the gradual loss of many aspects of thought and behavior.
Symptoms include forgetting names, dates, appointments, familiar routes of travel, forgetting to turn off the stove, etc.

Question 32

Neurofibrillary Tangles

Answer 32

Changes in the cerebral cortex; bundles of twisted threads that are the product of collapsed neural structures and that contain abnormal forms of a protein called tau.

Question 33

Amyloid Plaques

Answer 33

Outside neurons, dense deposits of a deteriorated protein, surrounded by clumps of dead neurons and glial cells develop.

Question 34

Cognitive Reserve

Answer 34

Complex cognitive activities of better-educated people lead to the reorganization of brain areas devoted to cognitive processes and to richer synaptic connections, giving the aging brain greater tolerance for injury before it crosses the threshold into mental disability.

Question 35

Vascular Dementia

Answer 35

A series of strokes leaves areas of dead brain cells, producing step-by-step degeneration of mental ability, with each step occurring abruptly after a stroke.

Question 36

Assisted Living

Answer 36

Homelike housing arrangements for older adults who require more help than can be provided at home but less than is usually provided in nursing homes.

Question 37

Selective Optimization with Compensation

Answer 37

Narrowing goals, selecting personally valued activities to optimize (or maximize returns from diminishing energy. One also finds new ways to compensate for losses.

Question 38

Episodic Memory

Answer 38

Retrieval of everyday experiences

Question 39

Semantic Memory

Answer 39

Recall of vocabulary and general knowledge removed from the context in which it was first learned

Question 40

Temporal Memory

Answer 40

Recall the order in which events occurred or how recently they happened

Question 41

Explicit Memory

Answer 41

Tasks, which require controlled, strategic processing

Question 42

Implicit Memory

Answer 42

Memory without conscious awareness

Question 43

Associative Memory Deficit

Answer 43

Difficulty creating and retrieving links between pieces of information (remembering the name of a movie with the child actor).0

Question 44

Remote Memory

Answer 44

Very long-term episodic recall

Question 45

Reminiscence Bump

Answer 45

Among remote events recalled, most happened between ages 10 and 30 - a period of heightened autobiographical memory.

Question 46

Prospective Memory

Answer 46

Refers to remembering to engage in planned actions in the future.

Question 47

Elderspeak

Answer 47

A form of communication resembling infant-directed speech, consisting of limited vocab, simplified expressions, and high-pitched, exaggerated expressions.

Question 48

Wisdom

Answer 48

When researchers ask people to describe wisdom, most mention breadth and depth of practical knowledge, ability to reflect on and apply that knowledge in ways that make life more bearable and worthwhile; emotional maturity, including the ability to listen patiently and empathetically and give sound advice; and the altruistic form of creativity that involves contributing to humanity and enriching others’ lives = expertise in the conduct and meaning of life.

Question 49

Terminal Decline

Answer 49

Refers to acceleration in deterioration of cognitive functioning prior to death. Accelerating falloff in cognitive performance or in emotional investment in life is a sign of loss of vitality and impending death.