Lecture 1: Why Ageing? Flashcards
Learning goals:
At the end of this course, you should be familiar with:
- The most important changes in cognition in normal ageing
- The most common forms of dementia and the accompagnying cognitive impairments
- Neuropsychological symptoms relevant for diagnosis of different forms of abnormal ageing
- The most important risk factors of abnormal ageing
Common myths about ageing
- Old people are typically less happy and content than young people
- Most older people will develop dementia at some point
- With ageing all cognitive functions will deteriorate
¨Why ageing? Why relevant or important to study?
- Scientific reasons:
- developmental view
- To present complete view of development.
- Developmental psychology: focus on children or young adults
- Ignored continuation development in adulthood
- Popular assumption in developmental psychology: gradual, predictable decline psychological functions with ageing – two-stage model
Two stages of life model:
- Physical and psychological functions develop (growth) up to a point (maturity), followed by a gradual and predictable decline (senescing):
- Biological functions – model is mostly correct
- Psychological functions – model is outdated
Life span perspective:
- changes between birth and death regarded as development.
- Changes in functional capacity are part of the life span
- Maturation continues until death
- Relevant for studying psychological ageing
- Changes are not predictable, not necessarily deterioration of functions
- → nErikson’s 8 stages
¨Why ageing? Why relevant or important to study?
¤Practical reasons
Strong increase in number of older persons worldwide:
Increase in diseases associated with ageing
Increase demands for treatment and care
Prevention of age-related disorders
What age?
- Types of Age
- Chronological age: the number of years since birth
- Biological age: age relative to the years one can expect to live (or relative to physical appearance and bodily functions, e.g. blood pressure)
- Functional age: person’s competence in carrying out specific tasks relative to persons of the same chronological age
- Psychological age: how well can a person adapt to changing conditions, flexibility, attempt new activities
- Social age: views held by most people in society about what a person of a particular chronological age should do and behave.
- (Chronological age most common measure in studies of ageing)
Older adulthood
- typically starts at 65 (retirement age)
- Further distinction: young-old (65-74), old-old (75-84) and oldest-old (>85)
Who is ageing? Individual variability
- Persons over 65 no homogeneous group
- Inter-individual differences
- Intra-individual differences
¨Increase in number of older persons
“At the root of the process of population ageing is the exceptionally rapid increase in the number of older persons, a consequence of the high birth rates of the early and middle portions of the twentieth century and the increasing proportions of people reaching old age” (World Population Ageing 2013, page 9.)
Life Expectancy at birth:
fertility rates:
Population pyramids:
Percentage of the population per 5-year age category.
- Red – men
- Yellow - women
Over 60s will become the largest age group.
- 2013: population over 60 outnumbered population aged 0 to 19 years
- •falling tobacco use & cardiovascular disease mortality
- 2024: population over 60 expected to outnumber all other age groups in more developed regions (World Population Ageing 2013)
Consequences of population ageing
- Dependency ratio
Ratio population in most dependent ages and the population in main working ages: (number children under 15 + persons aged 65 years and over) / (number of persons 15 - 64 years
Higher dependency rate means:
- more “dependents” relative to the group in the productive ages
- more economic pressure on the productive group
- dependency rate in more developed countries will rise
- mainly due to increase in the number of older people
Old age support ratio
- Number persons available in main working ages to support each older person: number of persons aged 15 - 64 / number of persons aged 65 or over.
- 2013, just 4 persons of working age for each older person in more developed regions
- ratio expected to decline further