Late Adulthood

1. Late Adulthood Chapters 18 & 19

2. Longevity • Life Expectancy & Life Span • Life Span is the upper boundary of life, the maximum number of years an individual can live. • The max is approx 120 years old • Life expectancy is the number of years that will probably be lived by the average person born in a particular year. • In U.S. 77 years (80 for women, 74 for men)

3. Sex Differences in Longevity • Females live about 6 years longer on average than males do. • Females outnumber males as the age of 25, and the gap widens from there. • The sex difference is likely due to biological (infection resistence) and social (health attitudes, habits, lifestyles, and occupation) factors. • Self-esteem and work satisfaction outweigh stress of work when the longevity of women is at issue.

4. Physical Development • Physical Appearance • The most obvious signs of aging are wrinkled skin and age spots on the skin. • Men lose about 11/4 inches by the age of 70. Women lose about 2 inches by the age of 75. • Weight often decreases after age 60 because of the loss of muscle. • Exercise and appropriate weight lifting can help to reduce the decrease in muscle mass and improve the older person’s body appearance

5. Physical Development • Movement • Older adults move slower than young adults. • General slowing of movement in older adults had been found in everyday tasks such as reaching and grasping, moving from one place to another, and continuous movement.

6. Physical Development • Sensory Development • Vision • The visual system declines but the vast majority of older adults can have their vision corrected so they can continue to work and function in the world. • Some of the changes that occur include: Night vision decreases, dark adaptation is slower, cataracts (cloudy opaque areas in the lens that prevent light from passing through), glaucoma (disease involves hardening of the eyeball because of fluid buildup), and macular degeneration (disease involving deterioration of the retina). • Hearing • Hearing declines often begin in middle age but usually do not become much of an impediment until late adulthood. • It is estimated that 15 percent of the population over age 65 is legally deaf, usually due to degeneration of the cochlea. • Hearing aids can diminish hearing problems for many older adults. • Smell and Taste • Smell and taste losses often begin around 60 years of age. • Smell and taste may decline although the decline is minimal in healthy older adults. • Touch • Changes in touch sensitivity are associated with aging although this does not present a problem for most older adults. • Touch sensitivity decreases more in the lower extremities than in the upper extremities. • Pain • Older adults are less sensitive to pain and suffer from it less than younger adults.

7. Physical Development • The Circulatory System • When heart disease is absent, the amount of blood pumped is the same regardless of an adult’s age. • High blood pressure is no longer just accepted but rather is treated with medication, exercise, and/or a healthy diet. • Blood pressure may rise with age because of illness, obesity, anxiety, stiffening of blood vessels, or lack of exercise. • The Respiratory System • Lung capacity drops 40 percent between the ages of 20 and 80, even without disease. • Older adults can improve lung functioning with diaphragm-strengthening exercises. • Sexuality • Aging in late adulthood does include some changes in sexual performance, more so for males than females (orgasm is less frequent for males, more direct stimulation is needed). • There are no known age limits to sexual activity.

8. Health Problems • Causes of Death in Older Adults • Nearly three-fourths of older adults die of heart disease, cancer, or cerebrovascular disease. • Arthritis is an inflammation of the joints accompanied by pain, stiffness, and movement problems. Arthritis is especially common in older adults. • Osteoporosis is an aging disorder involving an extensive loss of bone tissue. Osteoporosis is the main reason many older adults walk with a marked stoop. Women are especially vulnerable to osteoporosis, the leading cause of broken bones in women.

9. Cognitive Development • Crystallized intelligence is the accumulated info & verbal skills; increases with age. • Fluid intelligence is one’s ability to reason abstractly; steady decline from middle adulthood. • Cognitive mechanics are the hardware of the mind and reflect the neurophysiology architecture of the brain. Generally has more to do with the processing. • Cognitive pragmatics are the culture-based software programs of the mind. Such as acquired skills, language comprehension, things that help one cope with life. • Episodic memory is the retention of information about the where and when of life’s happenings. • Semantic memory is a person’s knowledge about the world; everyday knowledge. It may take longer but older adults are still able to retrieve.

10. Cognitive Development • Use It or Lose It • Researchers are finding that older adults, who engage in cognitive activities, especially challenging ones, have higher cognitive functioning than those who don’t use their cognitive skills.

11. Mental Health • Depression • Major depression is a mood disorder in which the individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-derogatory, and bored. The individual with major depression does not feel well, loses stamina easily, has a poor appetite, and is listless and unmotivated. • Depression has been called the “common cold” of mental disorders. • The most common predictors of depression in older adults are earlier depressive symptoms, poor health, loss events such as death of a spouse, and low social support. • As many as 80 percent of older adults with depressive symptoms receive no treatment at all. • Combinations of medications and psychotherapy produce significant improvements in almost 4 out of 5 elderly adults with depression. • Nearly 25 percent of individuals who commit suicide in the U.S. are 65 years of age or older.

12. Mental Health • Dementia • Dementia is a global term for any neurological disorder in which the primary symptoms involve a deterioration of mental functioning. • It is estimated that 20 percent of individuals over the age of 80 have dementia. • The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive, irreversible disorder that is characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and eventually physical functioning.

13. Mental Health • Alzheimer’s Disease • Approximately 4 million adults in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s disease. • It is predicted to triple in the next 50 years, as increasing numbers of people live to old age. • Alzheimer’s disease can be either early-onset (initially occurring in individuals younger than 65 years) or late-onset (initial onset after 65 years of age). • Early onset is rare (about 10 percent of all cases). • Causes and Treatments • Special efforts are being made to discover the causes of Alzheimer’s disease and effective treatments of it. • Alzheimer’s disease involves a deficiency in the important brain messenger chemical acetylcholine, which plays an important role in memory. • Efforts to identify the cause of Alzheimer’s have not been successful. • Among the main characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease are the increasing number of tangles (tied bundles of protein that impact the functioning of the neurons) and plaques (deposits that accumulate in the brain’s blood vessels). • An abnormal gene may be responsible for as many as one-third of all cases of Alzheimer’s disease.