Lecture 13: Health and Development Disorders Flashcards
motor skills
due to children playing outside less than they used to, they develop less motor skills
- however there are large individual differences
the thin ideal
the pressure to be abnormally thin
- means that many female teenages with a normal BMI still feel too fat
- even underweight girls sometimes want to lose weight
mother stress during pregnancy
if the mother experiences a lot of stress during pregnancy, the daugher is more likely to have problems with eating disorders
- testosterone seems to ensure that in boys the biological cause for the development of eating problems is less
anorexia nervosa
characterized by starvation, whereby one reaches or below 85% of one’s ideal body weight
- mainly in women and often occurs due to excessively low leptin levels
- can result of fertility and loss of menstruation
- can become life-threatening
bulimia nervosa
involves binge eating and then trying to get the food out of the body, also known as purging or fasting
- generally not life-threatening
- body weight often remains within the normal range
- however, purging can cause ofther physical problems such as mouth sores, ulcers in the oesophagus and loss of tooth enamel due to exposure to stomach acid
binge eating disorder
repeated excessive eating
- after a binge a person may feel very guilty and embarrased
- linked to obesity
- can be a health hazard
heredity component of eating disorders
internalizing problems such as stress, depression, and mood swings seem to play a role in development of EDs
- teenagers with EDs often have insecure attachments and an extreme need for approval
- these children are also often perfectionistic, have low self-esteem, and feel they have no control over their own lives
socio-economic status and life expectancy
people with a higher socio-economic status have a higher life expectancy than people with a low socio-economic status
socioeconomic health gap
wealthier people have a longer life expectancy than poor people
- starts before birth, as povery makes babies underweight
- can lead to heart disease and early death
- combined with poorer lifestyle (nutrition, medical care, etc)
gender and aging
women can live up to 10 years longer than men
- partly due to women having more social contacts
- mainly due to the extra X chromosome they have making women physically stronger at each stage
activities of daily living (ADL)
women often have ADL problems later in life
- the age at which one can live without ADL problems is called the health span
- more important to prolong healthspan than age at which one lives
major cognitive disorder (NCD) (dementia)
the label for any disease that causes severe, progressive cognitive loss, which affects a person’s independent life
mild vs major cognitive disorder
- mild form experience thinking problems but still able to live independently
- major form unable to live independently
deterioration progress
the deterioration progresses in different ways in different individuals
- these diseases are generally labelled as chronic
- on average one dies within 4 to 10 years
- these disorders typically occur in people who are well into old age
most common neurocognitive disorders
Alzheimer’s disease and vascular neurocognitive disorder or a combination of these 2
vascular neurocognitive disorder (commonly called vascular dementia)
refers to a deterioration in the vascular (blood) system or the network of arteries that feed the brain
- a person’s cognitive problems are caused by multiple small strokes
Alzheimer’s disease
directly affects the core structures of human consciousness, namely the neurons
- neurons die and are replaced by strange wavy structures called neurofibrillary tangles and by bullet-shaped proteins called senile plaques
- neural loss is compounded by vascular problems as these reduce blood flow to the brain
seven stages of Alzheimer’s disease
APOE-4 gene
the most important genetic factor in developing Alzheimer’s
- people having 2 copies of the APOE-4 gene have a 50% chance of developing the symptoms by the age of 68
focus on preventing Alzheimer’s
lies with a protein called amyloid
- a fatty substance that is the basic component of senile plaques
- accumulation of a toxic form of amyloid produces a compunt called tau (tau-p) that causes internal entanglement and neural decay
diathesis-stress model
shows that the interaction between nature and nurture is important
developmental psychopathology through different life phases
different degrees of severity in Alzheimer’s disease
