Late Adulthood: Cognitive Decline?

The period of late adulthood is summarised to be from around 65 years old and lasts until death (John W. Santrock, 2013, p485). Reaching late adulthood is a stage in which individuals are either, anxious or confident to reach. Erik Erikson (1950) suggests that this mainly depends on whether, at this time, individuals are able to find meaning and satisfaction in life rather than becoming bitter and disillusioned. Additionally, with the concept of ‘late adulthood’ coming into consideration very recently, before the 20th century, people rarely lived to be 65 years of age. This creates a convincing argument that perhaps late adulthood is a period of decline because that is, mentally and physically, the age the human brain and body are expected to function until. However, according to (Santrock, 2013, p511) ‘since 1900, improvements in medicine, nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle have increased our life expectancy an average of 30 additional years’ allowing a larger population of people to live longer and avoid a cognitive decline in their late adulthood.

Although life expectancy had shown improvements of an additional 30 years, the average life expectancy showed no improvement in the UK, from 2015 to 2017, remaining at 79.4 years for males and 83.1 years for females. These gender differences are consistent with health attitudes, lifestyle, habits, occupation, and biological factors. For instance, biological factors such as females being more resistant to infections as ‘the additional X chromosome females have in comparison to men can be associated with more antibodies to fight off diseases’ (Van Jaarsveld et al. (2006). Additionally, there is greater cigarette smoking among men; worldwide, it is estimated that men smoke nearly five times as much as women. Also, men’s lack of care towards their health such as keeping on top of their appointments, regular check-ups, and exercise are reflected in these statistics, indicating that women live up to 3.7 years longer than men, simply because they are involved with their health.

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Despite late adulthood being an under-represented area, one attempt at illustrating psychological development was provided by Erik Erikson’s (1968) theory of the human life span. Intimacy versus isolation is one of Erikson’s stages of development which plays part in early adulthood: the ability to care about others without the fear of losing your own identity. Generativity versus self-absorption, presented in middle adulthood: caring for others, and empathy and concern increases. Integrity versus despair is Erikson’s final stage of development which involves individuals reflecting on their past life and either seeing it as a meaningful moment or concluding that one’s life has not been well spent. This then either encourages integrity for those who have positive thoughts about the life they have lived or despair for those who think of their past life as being worthless to them.

One of the most common signs of aging lies within the change in eyesight, as our color vision and depth perception decline with age. For instance, the eyes take longer to adapt when moving from a well-lighted place to semi-darkness. Also, older adults may face difficulties in telling closely related colors apart or whether how far or close, high or low an object is. These are all factors that come with aging in which we may perhaps conclude that late adulthood does reach a period of decline as the human brain stops functioning as effectively as it does in earlier life. Similarly, our hearing, sense of smell, and taste typically decline too. The consequences of these are that one then begins to stop valuing their lives which will negatively impact their health and positivity to aging, resulting in reaching a decline quicker.

In addition, although individuals are able to outperform the average and prove that late adulthood is not necessarily a period of cognitive decline, there are specific conditions that come along with aging that is inescapable, such as Alzheimer's disease: a progressive, irreversible brain disorder which is characterized by a gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language and eventually, physical function. This is the most common form of dementia resulting in individuals losing the ability to care for themselves and can cause individuals to become unable to recognize familiar surroundings and people, including family members (McMillan, 2014; Teri, McKenzie, & Coulter, 2016). Additionally, it is estimated that 23 percent of women and 17 percent of men 85 years and older are at risk of developing dementia (Alzheimer’s Association, 2013). Another common condition is arthritis which is inflammation of the joints, causing pain and stiffness in body movement. Conditions like arthritis affect development in late adulthood as this condition can get in the way of individuals performing their daily routines which can then cause harm to one’s positivity in life as they may become more dependent on another individual. Also, another common condition in older adults is osteoporosis: an extensive loss of bone tissue which is more common in women than men. These conditions prove that the human mind and body are built to function adequately to a certain age hence why cognitive decline becomes unavoidable.

Another factor that draws toward late adulthood being a period of decline is the human memory as it changes with age. With the changes in memory comes four different parts: episodic memory, this being the remembrance of autobiographical events being when, where, places, context, and emotions. Semantic memory: general knowledge. Explicit memory is material that an individual can consciously state and implicit memory: is memory without conscious recollection and is automatically performed. Holland and Rabbitt (1991) asked two groups of people to generate as many memories as possible within 10 minutes from three stages of their lives: first, the second period of life, and the third. Group A, which shows the results of older people who live with the same intellectual ability but in their own community presented to remember a lot more in the third part of their life. On the other hand, Group B, which shows the results of older people living in residential homes at the time of taking part in the study, indicated a huge decline in the third part of their life. This suggests that late adulthood could be a period of change rather than decline and demonstrates the importance of the different situations that people are aging in. However, the disadvantage of this study is that it is problematic to use a small group of people to cover such a broad age range, in that, older adults should not be generalized with the same characteristics as one another as individuals have their differences in culture, experience, gender, and many more areas in life which then reflects on the results obtained.

Moreover, it is no surprise that the human mind and body start functioning differently and adapting to situations a lot slower as we age, however, with more individuals living up to an active old age, our image of age is now changing. For instance, although on average a 75-year-old’s joints should be stiffening, people can practice not being average and work towards this. For example, a 75-year-old man or woman might choose to run a marathon. A prime example that people can practice to change the stereotype that as you get into late adulthood, your life completely declines was presented by May Segal, who, ‘despite having retired at the age of 65 years and her heart complications, she began an exercise program that involved climbing the steps at Duke University’s football stadium in Durham, North Carolina’ (John W. Santrock 2016, p510). May turned 100 years of age in 2013 and has continued a regular exercise regimen for 35 years. Evidently, making the correct choices at the later stages of adulthood such as holding a healthy diet, regularly exercising, not smoking and alcohol use, getting enough sleep, and maintaining a healthy stress level showed to help decrease the chances of cognitive decline. Also, the significant impact of healthy relationships, emotional well-being, and having a purpose to live all determine how healthy an individual will live. ‘The whole idea is shifting from promoting gains to balancing losses’ (Freund, Alexander & Ebner, Natalie. (2005).

Cognitive decline in late adulthood can be avoided through positive aging. Individuals deal with aging in many different ways which is why the stereotype of living up to only the age of approximately 65 years and then reaching a decline in life is now showing a turn. An adult who has lived their life completing all, or most of the tasks that he/she desired to complete can go into the stage of late adulthood with positivity. Another factor that has an impact on successful aging is the sense of control people have over their own lives. (Judith Rodin & Ellen Langer 1977, p537) carried out a study in a residential home between two groups, expressing the importance of feeling in control and self-determination as we age. Group 1: addressed with speeches stressing the importance of individual responsibility for their own life and decision-making. Group 2: addressed by the same person, however, this time, the speeches emphasized the responsibility of staff. Eighteen months later, the results were analyzed to show that those who were given more control over their decisions were more alert and a lot happier than those who required a member of staff to satisfy their needs. These results demonstrate how much one’s attitude to take control over their own lives and be less dependent on another individual mentally prepares them to succeed in the challenges of life.

In conclusion, aging is stereotyped for us to believe that late adulthood is a period of cognitive decline in which we then start treating the elderly as inactive, dependent, and unable, and as a result, they begin to act this way. In addition, it is not actually late adulthood which is a stage of cognitive decline but it is in fact the stereotype and society that pressurizes people to believe that as they get older, it is normal for them to ‘hit rock bottom’ and give up on life, and because it is an under-represented are, people feel hopeless to follow this stereotype. Despite there being specific conditions that have a dramatic impact on how someone ages, there are many ways of successful aging which again, proves that late adulthood does not need to be a time of decline. One major impact of late adulthood is created by our social expectations and attitudes, for instance, if older adults are labeled to reach a decline, they are more likely to meet these expectations. (Beckett 2002, p202) once said ‘we should keep in mind that our attitudes to older people are really our attitudes to our future selves’ which proves that our social attitudes towards older people need to show change with the times.

References

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