Cognitive Changes in

Old Age
By: YO GABBA GABBA

Just as age-related changes in brain structure and

function are not uniform across the whole brain or
across individuals, age-related changes in cognition
are not uniform across all cognitive domains or
across all older individuals. The basic cognitive
functions most affected by age are attention and
memory. Neither of these are unitary functions,
however, and evidence suggests that some aspects
of attention and memory hold up well with age
while others show significant declines. Perception
(although considered by many to be a precognitive
function) also shows significant age-related declines
attributable mainly to declining sensory capacities.
Deficits at these early processing stages could affect
cognitive functions later in the processing stream.

Higher-level cognitive functions such as

language processing and decision-making may
also be affected by age. These tasks naturally
rely on more basic cognitive functions and will
generally show deficits to the extent that those
fundamental processes are impaired.
Moreover, complex cognitive tasks may also
depend on a set of executive functions, which
manage and coordinate the various
components of the tasks. Considerable
evidence points to impairment of executive
function as a key contributor to age-related
declines in a range of cognitive tasks.

Attention
Attention is a basic but complex cognitive process
that has multiple sub-processes specialized for
different aspects of attentional processing. Some
form of attention is involved in virtually all other
cognitive domains, except when task performance
has become habitual or automatic. Declines in
attention can therefore have broad-reaching
effects on ones ability to function adequately and
efficiently in everyday life.

Selective Attention
Selective attention refers to the ability to attend to
some stimuli while disregarding others that are
irrelevant to the task at hand. To perform well in
these kinds of tasks, people have to select the
relevant stimulus or dimensions for processing
and ignore the irrelevant ones. Although findings
are not entirely consistent across studies and may
differ across tasks, in general older adults appear
to be slower than younger adults in responding to
the targets, but are not differentially affected by
distraction.

Divided Attention
Divided attention has usually been associated with
significant age-related declines in performance,
particularly when tasks are complex. Divided
attention tasks require the processing of two or
more sources of information or the performance
of two or more tasks at the same time. Results
suggest that older adults are more affected by the
division of attention than young adults,
particularly when the attentional demands of the
two tasks are high.

Divided Attention, contd

In addition, older adults seem less able to allocate
resources appropriately when instructions are
given to vary task priority. There is evidence that
age deficits in divided attention and attention
switching can be reduced by practice or extended
training and by aerobic exercise.

Sustained Attention
Sustained attention refers to the ability to
maintain concentration on a task over an
extended period of time. Typically, vigilance tasks
are used to measure sustained attention, in which
people must monitor the environment for a
relatively infrequent signal, such as a blip on a
radar screen. In general, older adults are not
impaired on vigilance tasks.

Attention
Older adults show significant impairments on attentional
tasks that require dividing or switching of attention among
multiple inputs or tasks. They show relative preservation of
performance on tasks that require selection of relevant
stimuli; and although they are slower than young adults,
they are not differentially impaired by distraction. They
also are able to maintain concentration for an extended
period of time. The tasks on which older adults show
impairments tend to be those that require flexible control
of attention, a cognitive function associated with the
frontal lobes.

Working Memory
Working memory is a multidimensional cognitive
construct that has been hypothesized as the
fundamental source of age-related deficits in a
variety of cognitive tasks, including long-term
memory, language, problem solving, and decisionmaking. Older adults exhibit significant deficits in
tasks that involve active manipulation,
reorganization, or integration of the contents of
working memory.

Working Memory, contd

Many complex everyday tasks such as decision-making,
problem-solving, and the planning of goal-directed
behaviors require the integration and reorganization of
information from a variety of sources. It seems likely that
attention, speed of information processing, and the ability
to inhibit irrelevant information are all important functions
for effective performance of these higher-level cognitive
tasks.

Long Term Memory

The cognitive domain that has probably received the most
attention in normal aging is memory. Many older adults
complain of increased memory lapses as they age, and a
major focus of research has been to try to distinguish
memory declines attributable to normal aging from those
that are indicative of pathological aging, particularly
Alzheimers disease. Like attention, memory is not a
unitary construct; some kinds of memory remain relatively
intact with age while others show significant declines.
Long-term memory, unlike short-term and working
memory, requires retrieval of information that is no longer
present or being maintained in an active state.

Memory
Aging principally affects episodic memory, namely memory
for specific events or experiences that occurred in the past.
Although many older adults believe that their memories
for remote events are better than their memories for
recent events, it is likely that older memories have become
more semantic or gistlike, retaining the general core
information but lacking details, particularly spatial and
temporal context. More problematic for older adults is
remembering context or source information: where or
when something was heard or read, or even whether
something actually happened or was just thought about,
what has been called reality monitoring.

Perception
Declining sensory and perceptual abilities have important
implications for the everyday lives of older adults. Hearing
loss can isolate older people, preventing them from
engaging in conversation and other social interactions.
Visual impairments can limit mobility and interact with
attentional deficits to make driving a particularly
hazardous activity.

Perception, contd
As older people develop strategies to compensate for
declining sensory abilities, the ways in which they perform
other cognitive tasks may also be altered and may be less
efficient. Retraining and practice on these tasks may help
the adjustment and improve performance.

Arts, Crafts and Play

Therapy

Arts and Crafts

As we age, cognitive and physical exercise are
imperative not only to our health, but to our
overall life expectancy. Creating things, like
pottery, or painting, engage the elderly both
cognitively and psychologically. Cognitively, they
are utilizing a part of their brain that they
probably wouldnt ordinarily.

Arts and Crafts, contd

According to recent findings in a Journal of the
American Medical Association study, exercising
the brain is as important to keeping the brain alert
and strong as physical exercise is important to
keeping the body strong and able. Psychologically,
the benefits of creating things is fulfilling and gives
people a sense of worth and contribution; creating
gives people a more positive outlook on life, and
as we age, having the a negative outlook can
cause mental and physical deterioration.

Play Therapy
Although Play Therapy has been recognized as an
effective approach with children, few practitioners
may be aware of the research indicating that
adults can benefit from Play Therapy techniques.
Research has demonstrated that Play Therapy
techniques can be Successfully incorporated into
therapy for adult clients, especially those of old
age.

Play Therapy, contd

In using Play Therapy, the helping professional
assumes that clients of all ages remain child-like
within their internal processes and that everyone
can benefit from nonverbal self-expression. Play
Therapy interventions can allow adults to access
their inner selves and work through childhood
trauma using a range of materials. Materials are
specifically chosen to facilitate creative and
expressive play.

Play Therapy, contd

Instructions are purposefully vague, allowing
adults to choose their own modalities without the
pressure to verbalize painful memories and
experiences. Play Therapy can facilitate adults in
validating and interpreting their experiences
without the directiveness of therapeutic goals
(Schaefer, 2003). Practitioners who have used Play
Therapy with adults have found that Play Therapy
can lead to stress release, self-affirmation, insight,
and improved communication (Ward-Wimmer and
Ford, 2001).

Play Therapy, contd

Therapists can incorporate improvisation, role
plays, psychodrama, games, and projective
drawings and art to open up the hidden traumas
that are buried within clients developmental
stages. The use of play therapy strategies allows
for the use of humor, relaxation, and enrichment
into the process of uncovering areas of great pain
from a safer, more distanced approach.

Play Therapy, contd

Instructions are purposefully vague, allowing
adults to choose their own modalities without the
pressure to verbalize painful memories and
experiences. Play Therapy can facilitate adults in
validating and interpreting their experiences
without the directiveness of therapeutic goals
(Schaefer, 2003). Practitioners who have used Play
Therapy with adults have found that Play Therapy
can lead to stress release, self-affirmation, insight,
and improved communication (Ward-Wimmer and
Ford, 2001).

Play Therapy, contd

Creating safety within the session helps build the
therapeutic relationship and trust needed to work
through presenting problems. Play therapy
interventions promote healing and stress
reduction simply by giving clients the permission
they need to access the child within.