Week 3a: Cognitive aging Flashcards
What is cognition?
Set of all mental abilities and processes related to knowledge: attention, memory, working memory, judgment etc.
What is cognitive health?
A brain that can perform all the mental processes that are collectively known as cognition (learning new things, intuition, judgement, language and remembering)
Cognitive changes
- Memory
- Attention
- Language
- Intelligence
- Brain changes
- Everyday functioning in familiar environments
What is brain reserve?
Passive form of capacity that is thought to depend on the structural properties of the brain
Less brain reserve
Lower threshold for the expression of functional impairments
- express symptoms faster and more severely
What is cognitive reserve?
An active mechanism for coping with brain pathology (brain’s software)
Two key characteristics of cognitive reserve
1.The robustness of a particular cognitive function against brain pathology
2. The ability to use alternative functions when a default function is not working
ex. after a stroke you use a diff neural pathway to recover
High brain reserve
Progression is lower and less severe
Usually people with a higher IQ
Delayed free recall
Spontaneous retrieval of info from memory without a cue
ex. grocery list items
- declines with age
Source memory
Knowing the source of the learned info
ex. remembering where you learned a fact
- declines with age
Prospective memory
Remembering to perform intended actions in the future
ex. taking meds
- declines with age
Recognition memory
Ability to retrieve info when given a cue
ex. correctly giving details of a story
- stable with age
Temporal order memory
Memory for the correct time and sequence of past events
ex. order of what you did last weekend
- stable with age
Procedural memory
Memory of how to do things
ex. ride a bike
- stable with age
Long term memory
Long term memory is greater when you age
Short term memory
Short term memory is worse when you age
Aging and Long term memory
Less activity of the hippocampus
Insufficient storage of info
More overlap in the cells representing diff memories causing more interference
Fluid intelligence
Tasks that involve quick thinking, info manipulation, activities involving allocation and reallocation of attention
ex. tests of memory, spatial relations, abstract and inductive reasoning, free recall, mental calculations
Crystallized intelligence
Tasks that tap well-learned skills, language and retrieval of well-learned material
ex. verbal meaning, word association, social judgement, number skills
Aging and perceptual deficits
Understanding speech in noise
Understanding speed of speech
Light sensitivity, visual activity, colour vision and contrast sensitivity
*Can result in limitation in activity and social function
Aging and intelligence
Decreases in fluid intelligence
No decreases (some increases) in crystallized intelligence
What are some reasons for differences in intelligence with aging?
- Slowed processing speed
- Lack of inhibitory control
- Perceptual processing resources (working memory capacity) reduction
- Perceptual processing efficiency reduction
Cumulative demand
Every individual has many diff factors affecting their cognitive heath
Factors effecting cognitive aging
- Medications
- Sensory changes
- Health related changes
- Changes in mood
- Age
- Educational period
- Gender (females decline faster)
- Social factors
- History of disease
- Lifestyle choices (drinking/smoking)
Dementia
A group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life
- cognitive and psychological changes
Dementia- umbrella term
Alzheimer’s= 60-80%
Lewy body dementia=5-10%
Vascular dementia= 5-10%
Frontotemporal dementia= 5-10%
Others: Parkinson’s and Huntington’s
Comorbidities and dementia
People w dementia often have an underlying disease
Comorbidities progress in those with dementia
Causes of dementia
Neurodegeneration: damage and death of brain’s neurons
Why is the prevalence of dementia increasing?
More older adults
People living longer
7 symptoms of dementia (7 A’s)
- Anosognonia
- Agnosia
- Aphasia
- Apraxia
- Altered perception
- Amnesia
- Apathy
Anosognonia
Ignorance of presence of disease
Agnosia
Inability to recognize object using senses
Aphasia
Loss of ability to speak or understand
Apraxia
Inability to perform purposeful movements
Altered perception
Misinterpretation of info from senses
Amnesia
Memory loss
Apathy
Lack of interest
Alzheimer’s disease
Most common cause of a progressive dementia in older adults
Cause of Alzheimer’s disease
Caused by an increasing buildup of proteins (plaques) and fibres (tangles) in the brain
- block nerve signals and kill brain cells (shrink brain)
Mild Alzheimer’s disease symptoms
- Memory loss
- Wandering and getting lost
- Trouble handling money and paying bills
- Repeating questions
- Personality and behaviour changes
- Taking longer to complete normal daily tasks
Moderate Alzheimer’s disease symptoms
- Increased memory loss
- Increased confusion
- Problems recognizing friends and family
- Unable to learn new things
- Unable to carry multistep tasks
- Difficulty coping w new situations
- Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia
Severe Alzheimer’s disease symptoms
- Can’t communicate
- Completely dependent on others
- Body slowly shutting down
- Immobile
Diagnosis of dementia
- Medical history
- Physical exam
- Neuro exam
- Mental cognitive status exam
- Mini mental state exam
- Brain imaging
How many seniors aged 85+ have been diagnosed with dementia?
1/4
