Middle Adulthood Flashcards
Presbyopia
Age 60, lens loses capacity to adjust to distances
Vitreous
Transparent gel that fills eye becomes more opaque with age
Glaucoma
Poor fluid drainage leads to buildup of pressure in eye damaging the optic nerve
Presbycusis
Age related hearing loss
What race shows less hearing loss
African Tribes
What gender experiences more rapid hearing loss?
Men
3 layers of the skin
Epidermis
Dermis
Hypodermis
Climacteric
Midlife transition where fertility decreases
What race have fewer menopausal complaints
Asian women
Hormone therapy
Low daily doses of estrogen
ERT
Estrogen replacement therapy for women who have had their uterus surgically removed
HRT
Hormone replacement therapy– estrogen plus progesterone
Germline
Cancer from inherited predisposition
Atherosclerosis
Buildup of plaque in arteries
Angina pectoris
Crushing chest pain
Type A Behavior
Angry, competitive, hostile, ambitious, impatient
Hardiness
Control, commitment and challenge
Erikson stage for middle adulthood
Generativity vs. stagnation
Generativity
Reaching out to guide next generation
Stagnation
Become self- centered and indulgent when our goals have been attained
4 stages of Levinsons Seasons of life
Young- old
Destruction- creation
Masculinity- femininity
Engagement- Seperateness
Possible Selves
Future oriented representations of hopes and fears
Parental Imperative Theory
Gender roles are maintained during parenting years to ensure survival of the child
Big 5 Personality traits
Neuroticism Extroversion Openess to experience Agreeableness Concientiousness
% of people who live with family or spouse
87%
Kinkeeper
Gathering family for celebrations and making sure everybody stays in touch
4 reasons people value being grandparents
Valued elder
Immortality through descendants
Re-involvement with personal past
Indulegence
Skipped generation families
Live with grandparents apart from parents
% of adult children who care for aging adult
25%
Burnout
Long-term job stress leads to mental exhaustion, sense of loss of personla control and feelings of reduced accomplishment
Glass Ceiling
Invisible barrier to rising up the corporate ladder for women and minorities
Cohort effect
Each new generation experiences better health and education than the one before
Crystallized intelligence
Skills that depend on accumulated knowledge, experience and mastery of social conventions– cultural influence
Fluid intelligence
Depends on information processing skills, cognitons
Schaie study– 5 factors gained in adulthood
Verbal ability Inductive reasoning Verbal memory Spatial orientation Numeric ability
Greatest cognitive decline
Perceptual speed
Neural network view
Neurons in the brain die and breaks in neural network occur–new synaptic connections are less efficient
Information-loss view
Older adults experience greater loss of information as it moves through cognitive system
Expertise
Extensive, organized and integrated knowledge base used to support high level of performance
When does fluid inteligence decrease
Reduced after 20, sharp decrease after 45
Peak of crystallized intelligence
45-55
Deliberate memory
Recall difficult– context hard to encode
Automatic memory
Recognition is easier than recall. Better than deliberate
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Progressive degeneration of motor neurons of CNS leading to weak muscles and paralysis
Incidence of alzheimers over age 85
45%
What structure do plaques and tangles destroy
Hippocampus
Ishemic stroke
Clots in arteries of the brain
Embolic
Blood clot from elsewhere in body travels to brain
Thrombotic
Blood clot forms locally in brain
Hemorragic
Blood vessel ruptures and bleeds into brain
Subarachnoid
Blood spills into spinal fluid
