Unit 2 Flashcards
Epidermus
Outermost layer of the skin that protects the underlying tissue
Dermis
Middle layer of the skin containing protein molecules of elastin and collagen, among which various nerve cells, glands, and the hair follicles reside
Experiences the most significant changes
Subcutaneous
Bottommost layer of skin, giving the skin its opacity and smoothing the curves of the arms, legs, and face
Androgenic Alopecia
Male and female pattern hair loss
Fat-free mass (FFM)
Lean tissue
Decreases w age due to loss of muscle mass
Sarcopenia
Progressive age-related loss of muscle mass with a consequent loss of strength.
Declines at a faster rate of 12 to 15% per decade, especially for men, after 40s-50s.
Comes from disrupted signals that the nervous system sends to the muscles telling them to contract
Aging bones
As people experience decreases in sex hormones, they also lose bone mineral content
Aging joints
Stress and repeated use can cause the joints to wear out more rapidly.
Cardiovascular System
The heart, arteries, and veins.
The heart muscle itself and the arteries experience the most change. Plaque buildup over time in the heart decreases blood flow.
Aging Respiratory System
The respiratory muscles lose the ability to expand and contract the chest wall, and the lung tissue itself is less able to expand and contract during inspiration
Aging Urinary System
The urinary system is made up of the kidneys, bladder, ureters, and urethra.
-Elastic tissue of the bladder weakens, incapable of efficiently retaining or expelling urine
-Issues with being able to tell when they need to urinate
-Kidneys cannot filter as well as they used to
Urge Incontinence
Sudden need to urinate and may even leak urine
Stress Incontinence
Unable to retain urine while engaging in some form of physical exertion
Overactive Bladder
Incontinence and the need to urinate more frequently than normal
Aging Digestive System
-Decreases in saliva production
-Fewer gastric juices are secreted
-Stomach empties more slowly in older adults
-Decrease in liver volume and blood flow through the liver
Endocrine System
Glands that regulate the actions of the body’s other organ systems. Produces hormones.
-Highly sensitive to levels of stress and physical illness
Growth hormone (GH- Somatotropin)
Stimulates the growth of bones and muscles and regulates the growth of most internal organs
-Affects the metabolism of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates
Cortisol
Hormone produced by the adrenal gland
Stress hormone
-Glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis- Increased cortisol levels accelerate neuronal loss in the hippocampus and that repeated (cascading) increases in cortisol over the lifetime lead to further degeneration.
Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)
Controls the rate of metabolism
Melatonin
Manufactured by the pineal gland (brainstem)
-Affects the circadian rhythm- The daily variations in various bodily functions
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
A weak male steroid (androgen) produced by the adrenal glands
-Production decreases with age in males
-Low levels linked to cardiovascular disease, some forms of cancer, immune system dysfunction, and obesity
Menopause
The point in a woman’s life when menstruation stops permanently
-Decreases in estrogen levels, endocrine system releases higher amounts of other hormones that affect the temperature control centers in the brain
-The tissues in the vagina and surrounding nerves and glands become thinner, drier, and less able to produce secretions to lubricate before and during intercourse
Climacteric
The gradual winding down of reproductive ability in men and women
Andropause
Age-related declines in the male sex hormone testosterone
Erectile Dysfuntion
unable to achieve an erection sustainable for intercourse
Immune senescence
The belief that there are widespread age-related declines in immune system functioning
Neuronal Fallout Model
Loss of brain tissue over their life span because neurons do not have the ability to replace themselves when they die
Plasticity Model
Although some neurons die, the remaining ones continue to develop
-older adults can show neural plasticity by compensating for declines in certain brain regions by activating other areas that remain intact
Sleep Apnea
The individual becomes temporarily unable to breathe while asleep
Presbyopia
Loss of the ability to focus vision on near objects
Cataract
A clouding or opacity in the lens
Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD)
Damage to the photoreceptors located in the central region of the retina known as the macula.
Glaucoma
Group of conditions causing blindness related to changes in pressure within the eyeball.
Presbycusis
Age-related hearing loss due to degenerative changes in the cochlea or auditory nerve leading from the cochlea to the brain
-Continuous across increasingly higher ages
-Health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure can also put a person at higher risk
Tinnitus
Sounds in the head or ear (such as a ringing noise) when there is no external source
Dysthermia
Excessive raising of body temperature (hyperthermia) or lowering of body temperature (hypothermia).
-Sweat output is reduced, causing their core temperatures to rise
Aging and balance
Those who become injured in a fall have a higher risk of requiring institutionalization and a higher rate of mortality. Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injury.
Fear of falling (FOF)- a vicious cycle in which older individuals increasingly restrict their movement
HAROLD Model
Brains of older adults become activated in the opposite hemisphere when the original area suffers deficits.
-Plasticity
Health
A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being; not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
ADLs (Activities of Daily Living)
Ability to complete the tasks of bathing, dressing, transferring, using the toilet, and eating
IADLs (Instrumental ADLs)
Ability to use the telephone, go shopping, prepare meals, complete housekeeping tasks, do laundry, use private or public transportation, take medications, and handle finances
Cardiovascular disease
A set of abnormal conditions that develop in the heart and arteries.
Arteriosclerosis
Thickening and hardening of arteries
-accumulation of plaque forces the blood to be pushed through narrower arteries. Pressure on the blood as it is being pumped out of the heart becomes greater, causing risk for hypertension
Coronary (ischemic) heart disease
Arteriosclerosis causing a blockage of blood supply to the heart
Hypertension
Chronically abnormally elevated blood pressure
-artery walls become weakened and inflamed from pressure that the blood exerts in its passage through the arteries
Congestive Heart Failure
the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body’s other organs
Cerebrovascular disease
disorders of circulation to the brain
-Cerebrovascular accident- AKA “stroke” - Artery leading to the brain bursts or is clogged by a blood clot or other particle
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
Development of clots in the cerebral arteries; also called a ministroke
Aging and cancer
Reflects damage to the genes that control cell replication. Each cancer is unique
-Environmental factors (ex asbestos)
-Habbits (diet, smoking)
-Genetics
BMI and cancer
Higher BMIs associate with cancer of the esophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidney. Significant trends of increasing risk with higher BMIs were observed for death from cancers of the stomach and prostate in men and for death from cancers of the breast, uterus, cervix, and ovary in women.
Arthritis
Conditions affecting the joints and surrounding tissues that can cause pain, stiffness, and swelling in joints and other connective tissues
Osteoarthritis
Painful, degenerative joint disease that often involves the hips, knees, neck, lower back, or the small joints of the hands.
-Those obese are four times more likely to have knee osteoarthritis compared to the general population
-No cure
Osteoporosis
Bone mineral density reaches the point that is more than 2.5 standard deviations below the mean of young, White, non-Hispanic women
-Smoking and alcoholism
-Vitamin inefficiency
Diabetes
Inability to metabolize glucose, a simple sugar that is a major source of energy for the body’s cells
Adult-onset diabetes or type 2 diabetes
Gradually reduces the individual’s ability to convert dietary glucose to a form that can be used by the body’s cells.
-Some insulin produced, but the body’s tissues fail to respond to the insulin signal, AKA insulin resistance
-Glucose cannot be transported into the body’s cells to be used, remaining in the blood
-Affect almost every organ system, contributing to blindness, heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, the necessity for limb amputations, and damage to the nervous system.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
A group of diseases that involve obstruction of the airflow into the respiratory system
-Chronic Bronchitis
-Chronic emphysema
Chronic Bronchitis
Long-standing inflammation of the bronchi (airways that lead into the lungs), causing an increase in mucus and other changes
Chronic Emphysema
Permanent destruction of the alveoli
Neurocognitive Disorders
An individual experiences a loss of cognitive function severe enough to interfere with normal daily activities and social relationships
Dementia
A loss of cognitive abilities
Age complexity hypothesis
Slowing of the central processes in the nervous system, age differences increase as tasks become more complex and the older adult’s processing resources are stretched more and more to their limit.
Simple visual search
the target differs from the other stimuli by only one feature, such as shape, color, or size
Conjunction visual search
the target differs from the distractors in more than one way
Alzheimer’s Disease
Progressive and irreversible neuronal death
Stroop Test
Words are colors (ex blue, red, yellow) but the text is not the same color as the word is (ex. Blue is in red ink). Participants are either asked to say the color of the word or the word itself, timed reaction
-Inhibitory control
Inhibitory Control
Turning off one response while performing another
Sustained attention
Respond when they see a particular target appear out of a continuous stream of stimuli
-Older adults typically have more difficulty on sustained attention tasks than do younger adults
Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis
Aging reduces the individual’s ability to inhibit or tune out irrelevant information
-Older adults who show deficits on laboratory attentional tasks are able to perform well on the complex tasks required in the situations they encounter on the job on a daily basis
Useful Field of View
Tests people’s ability to respond to stimuli appearing in the periphery of their vision
Aging and Driving
-Changes in basic cognitive functions threaten to impair the older adult’s ability to drive. Slower reaction timing, worsening of vision, ect.
-older drivers are able to self-regulate their behaviors to compensate for the changes they experience in their visual and cognitive abilities. They avoid driving at night, on interstate highways, or situations in which they must make risky left-hand turns
Working memory
Keeps information temporarily available and active in consciousness
Long-Term Memory
The repository of information that is held for a period of time ranging from several minutes to a lifetime
Episodic Memory
Memory for events that took place in the past.
-older adults experience impairments in episodic memory, both in encoding and retrieving information
depends on the integrity of connections among the frontal cortex, temporal and parietal lobes, and areas of the subcortex, including the thalamus
Scaffolding Theory
Older adults are able to recruit alternate neural circuits as needed by task demands to make up for losses suffered elsewhere
Reminiscence Bump
Clear memories from the age of about 10 to 30 years
-Particularly strong for happy memories because they are central to identity
Flashbulb Memory
Recall of important and distinctive events that stand out from other memories of past events
-When older adults form such memories, they also attach emotional meaning to it
Semantic Memory
The ability to recall word meanings and factual information
Procedural Memory
The recall of the actions involved in particular tasks
-Sewing on a button, playing the piano, and riding a bike
Implicit Memory
Long-term memory for information that people acquire without intending to do so
-does not appear to be affected by the aging process
Source Memory
Recall of where or how an individual acquires information
Prospective Memory
Recall of events to be performed in the future
Retrieval-induced forgetting (Tip of my tongue)
Unable to remember information that a person knew at one time in the past
Memory-Self Efficacy
The degree to which an individual believes he can successfully complete a memory task
Stereotype Threat
People perform in ways consistent with negative stereotypes of the group to which they see themselves as belonging
Memory Controllability
beliefs about the effects of the aging process on memory, such as the extent to which the individual believes that memory decline is inevitable with age
Deep Processing
think about the meaning of the information they are trying to remember rather than simply repeating information by rote
Elderspeak
A speech pattern directed at older adults similar to the way people talk to babies
Communication Predicament Model
Older adults are thought of as mentally incapacitated, leading younger people to speak to them in a simplified manner (using elderspeak). Reducing the older adult’s actual ability to use language.
Mental clutter
Inability to inhibit irrelevant information. This tendency causes their speech to become somewhat rambling.
Everyday problem solving
Problems that typically occur in people’s daily lives, that can be solved in more than one way, and that require the problem solver to decide which strategy will lead to the desired result.
-may become slower and have more memory lapses (Minus familiar tasks)
Formal Operations
Ability of adolescents and adults to use logic and abstract symbols to arrive at solutions to complex problems
Postformal operations
The way that adults structure their thinking over and beyond that of adolescents
Dialect Thinking
Postformal stage of cognitive development involving an interest in and appreciation for debate, arguments, and counterarguments
Attraction Effect
adding an irrelevant alternative into an existing choice set increases the proportion of people choosing an alternative from the original set
Crystallized/fluid intelligence
The acquisition of specific skills and information that people gain as the result of their exposure to the language, knowledge, and conventions of their culture
Reserve Capacity
Abilities that are there to be used but are currently untapped
Berlin Wisdom Paradigm
wisdom is a form of expert knowledge in the pragmatics of life
Stages of AD
Very Mild
Mild
Moderate
Moderately Severe
Severe
Very Severe
AD - Very Mild Stage
Earliest clear deficits
* Lost traveling to unfamiliar location
* Coworkers aware of relatively poor performance
* Read and retain relatively little information
* Decreased memory for names of newly introduced
* Lost or misplaced an object of value
* Concentration deficit
Objective evidence only with formal tests
* Decreased performance in demanding settings
* Denial begins; mild to moderate anxiety
AD - Moderate Stage
Clear-cut deficit on clinical interview:
* Decreased knowledge of current/recent events
* Memory of personal history*
* Concentration deficits on serial subtractions
* Decreased ability to handle travel, finances etc.
* Inability to perform complex tasks
* Denial is dominant defense mechanism
* Flattening of affect
* Withdrawal from challenging situations
AD - Moderately Severe Stage
Cannot function without some assistance
* Unable to recall a major relevant aspect of current life:
* Phone number
* Names of close family members
* Schools graduated from
* Frequent disorientation: of Day, Date, Season, Place
AD - Severe Stage
- Occasionally forget name of spouse
- Mostly unaware of recent events and life experiences
- Retain some knowledge of past life, but sketchy
- Difficulty counting backward/forward to and from 10
- Require some assistance with ADLs
- Diurnal rhythm disturbed
- Distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people
- Personality and emotional changes: delusional behavior, obsessive symptoms, anxiety, loss of purposeful behavior
AD - Very Severe Stage
- All verbal abilities lost
- Frequently no speech at all
- Incontinent of urine
- Requires assistance in toileting and feeding
- Loses basic psychomotor skill (e.g., ability to walk)
- The brain no longer appears to be able to tell the body what to do
Assessment of AD
- Must rule out other causes for memory problems
Pseudodementias
Other true dementias - Establish symptomology consistent with AD
- Must see progressive worsening
- No disturbance of consciousness
- Personal Medical History
- Physical Exam (For heart failure, liver disease, kidney failure, respiratory diseases, thyroid disorders
- Checking for signs of stroke, tumors, & tremors
- Electrolyte levels in blood (Na+, K+, Cl-)
- Blood levels of glucose, urea, creatinine
- Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)
- Syphilis
DSM Criteria for AD
A. Dementia established by clinical examination
B. Impairment in at least two areas of cognition
-Memory, reasoning, aphasia, agnosia, apraxia, Changes in personality/behavior
C. Progressive worsening of memory and other cognitive
functions
D. No disturbance of consciousness
E. Onset between 40 and 90, most often after 65
F. Absence of systemic disorders or brain diseases that
could account for memory and cognitive impairment.
Acetylcholine (ACH)
Important for learning and memory
* HPC à Entorhinal Cortex à Temporal Cortex
* HPC à Nucleus Basalis of Meynert à Frontal Cortex
NMDA Receptor Antagonist
- Namenda (memantine)
- Blocks activity of NT glutamate by binding to NMDA
receptors
neuronal repair
the use of hepatocyte growth factor
(HGF; a protein that regulates cell growth) to activate
MET (a biological process for regenerative medicine
that has been successfully used in heart, respiratory,
CNS and neurologic disorders)
Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
AD strikes at 40 to 50 years.
Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease
AD starting 60 or 65 years
Tau
Protein that makes up neurofibrillary tangles.
Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene
Prime genes thought to cause AD
-Protein carries cholesterol thru body, binds to beta-amyloid, possibly playing a role in plaque formation
Agnosia, apraxia, and aphasia
Agnosia- Loss of ability to recognize familiar objects
Aphasia- Loss of language ability
Apraxia- Loss of ability to carry out coordinated movement
Acetylcholinesterase
Enzyme destroys ACH after its release into the synaptic cleft; AKA cholinesterase.
Pseudodementia
Cognitive symptoms appear, cause impairment similar to neurocognitive disorder
-depression in O-A
Wernicke’s disease
Acute condition caused by chronic alcohol abuse
-delirium, eye movement disturbances, difficulties maintaining balance and movement, and deterioration of the nerves to the hands and feet
