Читать книгу Helping Relationships With Older Adults - Adelle M. Williams - Страница 41

Healthy aging is associated with relatively little cognitive decline. An examination of cognition in aging includes attention, learning and memory, language, and intelligence. Sustained attention is very good in healthy older adults, and there is a mild decline in overall accuracy beginning in the 60s that progresses slowly. Older adults are more easily distracted, especially if irrelevant information is presented with important material. A good suggestion is to give instructions directly and simply, encourage encoding strategies, and refer them to reputable memory training (Besdine & Wu, 2008). When counselors provide critical information to older patients, they should stick to core data, repeat it, and write it down (Besdine & Wu, 2008).

Cid-Fernandez, Lindin, and Diaz (2014) tested attentional performance in three age groups: young (21–29 years old), middle-aged (51–64 years old), and older adults (65–84 years old). The task used in this study involved presenting both visual and auditory cues to the participants, who were required to focus on the visual cues while ignoring the auditory cues. The results showed that there was an increase in distractibility and changes in motor selection in the middle-aged and older groups compared to the younger groups. It is thus suggested that these cognitive working memory changes in aging lead to the slowing of motor response selection. This study also has implications for understanding motor and cognitive problems associated with age-related neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. This study helps us understand the changes that occur in neurodegenerative disorders by increasing our knowledge of what happens in the brain as symptoms are manifested in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. These diseases are characterized by slow reaction time to stimuli, slowed working memory, and slowed movements. Attention in later life remains an important function for older adults, and learning and memory are important concerns for adults as they age.