EXAM 4 LECTURE NOTES
CHAPTERS 13, 14, 15, 16,17
• Chapter 13: Physical and cognitive
development in middle adulthood
• (344-361)
1. Defining middle adulthood (346)
• Approximately 40 to 60-65 years of age.
• Declining physical skills and expanding
responsibilities
• Balancing work and relationship
responsibilities
• With physical and psychological changes
associated with aging
2. Middle adulthood likely
includes:
• Death of parents
• Last child leaving home
• Becoming grandparent
• Preparing for retirement
• Actual retirement
• Physical development
• Skin begins to wrinkle and sag
• Loss of fat and collagen in underlying tissues
• Small localized areas of pigmentation result in
aging spots
• Thinning and graying hair
• Fingernails and toenails thicker and more
brittle
3. Height and weight (347)
• Begin to lose height
• Men: average ½ inch, from 30-50; ¾ inch from
50-70
• Women: up to 2 inches from 20-75
• Many people gain weight
• Average 20% body fat during midlife
• Being overweight or obese critical health
problem in midlife
• Increases likelihood for developing
hypertension, diabetes, digestive disorders
4. Strength, joints, bones (348)
• Sarcopenia: age-related loss of muscle mass
and strength
• Exercise reduces rate of developing sarcopenia
• Cartilage, tendons and ligaments become less
efficient
• Decline in bone density begins mid-late
thirties and accelerates in 50’s
5. Vision and hearing
• Accommodation of eye declines most
between 40-59
• Difficulty focusing on near objects
• Hearing begins decline about age 40
• First lose sensitivity to high pitch sounds
6. Cardiovascular system
• High blood pressure and high cholesterol
noticeable
• Fatty deposits and scar tissue develop on walls
of blood vessels
• Cholesterol collects on wall of blood vessels
• Result in reduce blood flow to brain and heart
• Exercise and healthy eating including fruits,
vegetables and grains delay cardiovascular
problems
7. Lungs (349)
• About age 55, proteins in lung tissue become
less elastic
• Gradual stiffening of connective tissue in chest
wall combines
• result in decrease in lung capacity to bring
oxygen to veins
• Smokers have especially low lung capacity
8. Sleep
• Total hours of sleep remains stable
• Beginning in 40’s, increasing frequency of
wakeful periods
• Less frequent stage 4 (very deep) sleep
9. Health and disease
• Decrease frequency of accidents, colds,
allergies for some
• Stress increasingly a factor in disease,
especially in immune system and
cardiovascular system
• Mortality rates (350)
• Chronic diseases more likely cause of death
than infectious diseases
• Most likely a single, identifiable condition
• Heart disease, cancer and cerebrovascular
disease
10. Sexuality
• Menopause: usually late 40’s or early 50’s in
women
• Menstrual flow stops
• Timing and side effects vary widely
• Side effects result from decline in estrogen
• Include hot flashes, nausea, fatigue and rapid
heartbeat
• (351)
• Side effects experiences vary widely, especially
across different cultural and ethnic groups
• May not be a negative experience for most
women
• Loss of fertility is important marker
• Hormone replacement therapy controversial
• Consists of forms of estrogen and progestin
• Some HRT recipients developed increased risk
of stroke and dementia
• HRT study found lower risk of hip fractures
and no increase in risk for heart attack or
breast cancer
• Hormonal changes in middle-aged men
• Modest decline in sexual hormone level and
activity
• May be more psychological than physical
• (352)
• Gradually reduced sex drive
• Erections less full and less frequent
• Erectile dysfunction may be psychological
and/or physical
• Smoking, diabetes, hypertension and elevated
cholesterol contribute to erectile problems
11. Sexual attitudes and behavior
• Activity less frequent compared to early
adulthood
• Increasing career interests, family matters,
lower energy levels, changing activity routines
contribute
12. Fluid and crystallized
intelligence
• (353)
• Fluid: ability to reason abstractly declines in
midlife
• Crystallized: accumulated information and
verbal skills increase in midlife
• Data from cross-sectional study (Horn and
Donaldson, 1980)
• Differences may have been because of cohort
effects
• Whether data collected in cross-sectional or
longitudinal study affects results on
crystallized and fluid intelligence
13. Seattle Longitudinal study
beginning in 1956
• (354)
• Schaie,1996; Willis & Schaie, 2005)
• Tested vocabulary, verbal memory, spatial
orientation, inductive reasoning, perceptual
speed, numerical ability
• Highest level functioning in midlife for first 4
areas tested
• Two abilities showed decline in midlife:
numerical ability and perceptual speed
• Schaie’s results indicate cognitive funtioning
peaks in midlife, not early adulthood
14. Information processing
• Speed of information processing
• Declines beginning in early adulthood and
continues in midlife
• Commonly measured using reaction-time task
• Press a button when a light appears
15. Memory
• (355)
• Denise Park (2001) proposed more time
required to learn new information beginning
in midlife
• Slowdown may be linked to changes in
working memory (short-term memory)
• Working memory allows manipulating and
assembling information
• especially -
• making decisions,
• solving problems,
• understanding written and spoken language
• Memory decline most likely if not use
strategies such as organization and imagery
• Can improve memory in midlife if organize
(phone) numbers in different categories or
imagine the numbers representing different
objects in a familiar location
16. Expertise
• Most evident in midlife, possibly because of
time needed to develop
• Involves highly organized knowledge and
understanding of a particular domain
• Experts more likely to --
• rely on accumulated experience to solve
problems
• Process information automatically
• Analyze information efficiently
• Devise better strategies
• Use shortcuts to solve problems
• Be creative and flexible in solving problems
17. Careers, work and leisure
• Work in midlife
• Role of work usually central in midlife
• Middle-aged adults also may have multiple
financial responsibilities,
• Often reach peak in position and earnings
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Career paths are diverse
Some have stable careers
Others move in and out of work force
Age discrimination common in midlife
Midlife often a time of evaluation,
assessment and reflection about employment
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Midlife employment issues:
Recognize limitations in career progress
Decide whether to change jobs or career fields
Decide whether to change balance in work
and family responsibilities
• Plan for retirement
18. Career challenges and changes
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Challenges include -
Globalization of work
Rapid technological developments
Organizational downsizing
Early retirement
Health care
• Globalization has resulted in a workforce of
employees with different ethnic and cultural
backgrounds
• Increased computer technology means
increased computer literacy necessary for
effective competition in the workforce
• Increased frequency of restructuring,
downsizing and outsourcing -
• Result: increased incentive to retire early
• Midlife career changes vary in motivation
• Some self-related:
• desire for change in type or amount of
responsibility
• adjustment of idealistic hopes to realistic
possibilities
• Timing of reaching occupational goals
19. Leisure- (357)
• Pleasant activities after work when free to
pursue interests of own choosing
• Important during midlife
• May have increased free time and money
• Expanded leisure opportunities
• Important in preparing for retirement
20. Religion and meaning in life
• Religion, spirituality and adult life
• Important to many adults across most cultures
and ethnic groups
• wide diversity of influence for individuals
• Religion, spirituality and health
• For mainstream, either no link or positive
effect
• Why a connection with health?
• Lifestyle issues -
• Religious individuals have lower level drug use
• Religious/spiritual social networks -
• People with strong social support networks
tend to have fewer health problems
• Coping with stress -
• Religion and spirituality offer source of
comfort and support
21. Life meaning
• Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning,
1984)
• Emphasized individual uniqueness and life
finiteness
• Certainty of death adds meaning to life
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(359)
3 distinct human qualities:
Spirituality, freedom and responsibility
Spirituality = human uniqueness of spirit,
philosophy and mind
• Recommends questioning existence, life goals,
and life meaning
• During midlife:
• Consider death more often
• Realize there is less time in potential future
compared to the past
• Considering Frankl’s questions reflectively can
help in times of stress
• Chapter 14: Socioemotional development in
middle adulthood
• (362-379)
CHAPTER 14 LIFESPAN
DEVELOPMENT
SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN
MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
1. Erikson’s stage of generativity
versus stagnation
• Generativity = desire to leave legacy to next
generation
• Stagnation = sense that you have done little or
nothing for next generation
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Generative adults -
Commit to improvement of society
Positive legacy of self
Biological generativity = offspring
Parental generativity = nurture children
Work generativity = develop skills and knowledge
Cultural generativity = create, renovate, conserve
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(364)
Promote and guide next generation
Levinson’s Season’s of a Man’s Life
Study focused on middle-aged men
Emphasized developmental tasks at each
stage
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Transition from teen to adult
Gain independence from parents
20’s = novice phase of adulthood
Reasonably free experimentation
Testing idealistic dreams in real world
• 28-33 = transition to facing choice of goals
• 30’s focus on family and career development
• Age 40 = usually stable position in career
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40-45 = 4 major conflicts
1)young versus old
2)destructive versus constructive
3)masculine versus feminine
4)attachment versus separation
How pervasive are midlife crises?
• Levinson saw midlife as suspension between
past and future
• Vaillant = Grant study
• Men in early 30’s and 40’s
• 40’s time of assessment
• Only minority if individuals experience severe
crises
• Idea of midlife crisis probably exaggerated
Life events approach
• Life events = stressful circumstances
prompting change in personality
• Contemporary view of life events
• Focus on life events + mediating factors
Examples of mediating factors
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Physical health
Family and other social support
Predictability
Control
Coping strategies
Social and historical context
• Drawback to life events approach
• Too much emphasis on change
Comparison of young, midlife and
older adults experience of stress
• Start here Tuesday august 11 2009
• Stress and personal control
• Young and mid adults report more frequent
stressors than older adults
• Mid adults reported more overload stressors
• Adults generally report more stress as they get
older
• Most frequent stressor = interpersonal tension
Gender and educational level
influence stress experience
• Mid-life women report more crossover
stressors
• Lower educational group members experience
same number of stressors but rated them as
more severe
Context of midlife development
• Historical links similar to cohort influence
• Neugarten = values, attitudes expectations
and behaviors different for different age
groups or cohorts
• Social clock = time table for accomplishing life
tasks
• Provides guide for living life
• If individual life not synchronized, experience
more stress
• Social clock different for different age groups
Cultural contexts
• Concept of middle age unclear in
nonindustrial countries
• In some cultures movement between statuses
depends more on life events rather than age
• Midlife women in other cultures may
experience advantages
• Freedom from certain restrictions
• More geographical mobility
• Child care delegated
• Domestic tasks reduced
• Right to exercise authority over younger kin
• Work more administrative
• Eligible for special statuses and recognition
beyond the household
• Vocations including midwife, curer, holy
woman, matchmaker
• Cultural context can differ in several ways
Stability and change in personality
• Costa and McCrae study
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Big five personality factors
1) openness to experience
2) conscientiousness
3) extraversion
4) agreeableness
5) neuroticism
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Analysis of big five framework
More change in adult years
Extraversion components =
social dominance (assertiveness)
social vitality (sociability)
• Social dominance increases in adolescence
and midlife
• Social vitality increases in adolescence and
decreases in early and late adulthood
Berkeley Longitudinal study
• Continued in 1920’s and 1930’s
• Stable – intellectual orientation, selfconfidence, openness to new experience
• More likely to change – being nurturing or
hostile; having good self-control or not
Vaillant studies – 3 longitudinal
studies
• Studied whether personality at midlife
predicts personality in late adulthood
• Found alcohol abuse and smoking at age 50
predicts death between 75 and 80
• Factors at 50 predicting being happy and well 
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Regular exercise
Avoiding overweight
Being well-educated
Having a stable marriage
Being future-oriented
Being thankful and forgiving
Empathizing with others
• Being active with others
• Having good coping skills
• Generativity in midlife strongly related to
having enduring and happy marriage
• Conclusions- personality traits not
permanently fixed during adulthood
• Personality change is limited
• Age is positively related to personality stability
• Stability peaks in 50’s and 60’s
Cumulative personality model
• With time and age people become more
adept at interacting with their environment to
promote personality stability
Close relationships
• Love and marriage at midlife
• Love becomes more affectionate and
companionate
• More emphasis on security, loyalty and
mutual emotional interest
Divorce at midlife
• more positive in some ways and more
negative in others compared to other age
stages
• For mature individuals divorce can be less
stressful
• They have more resources, use time to
dispose of possessions
• Their children are likely adults and they have
greater self-understanding
• Emotional and time commitment may be
difficult to give up
• May perceive divorce as failure
• Divorcer sees escape
• Person being divorced sees betrayal
• Staying married because of children most
often delays divorce
Main reasons for divorce
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Women-
Verbal, physical emotional abuse
Alcohol or drug abuse
cheating
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Men -
No problem, fell out of love
Cheating
Different values and lifestyle
Empty nest and refilling
• For parents, an adjustment when children
leave home
• May be decline in marital satisfaction when
children leave home
• For many parents there is increase in marital
satisfaction when last child leaves home
• Parents have time to pursue careers, other
interests, more time for each other
• Refilling the empty nest
• More common in uncertain economy
• Children return home after college or before
full-time employment
• Young adults sometimes move back home
after unsuccessful career experiences or
divorce
• Midlife adults usually willing to support
younger generation, both financially and
emotionally
• Pluses and minuses when adult children
return home
• Parents and children should agree on
expectations and conditions beforehand
• If not negotiated, conflict will almost certainly
result
Intimacy triangle
• Symmetry
• Risky self-disclosure
• Empathy
Sibling relationships and
friendships
• Most sibling relationships remain close in
adulthood, if developed in childhood
• (375)
• Friendships continue to be important in
middle adulthood
• Takes time to develop intimate relationships
Grandparenting
• Many adults become grandparents for first
time in middle adulthood
• Grandmothers usually have more contact with
grandchildren
Grandparent roles (376)
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3 major meanings to being a grandparent
(Neugarten and Weinstein, 1964)
Biological reward and continuity
Emotional self-fulfillment, companionship and
satisfaction
• Remote experience
Changing profile of grandparents
• Increasing number of grandchildren live with
grandparents
• Divorce, drug use and adolescent pregnancies
among primary reasons
Grandparenting stress linked to 3
conditions
• Being younger grandparent
• Having grandchildren with physical and
mental disabilities
• Low family cohesion
• (377)
• Special concern: visitation privileges with
grandchildren
• Controversial if visitation privileges are forced
and against parents wishes
Intergenerational relationships
• Adults in midlife have variety of roles
• Share experience and transmit values to
younger generation
• Experiencing empty nest
• Adjusting to having grown children return
home
• May give or receive financial assistance
• May care for widowed or ill parent
• May adjust to being oldest generation after
both parents have died
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Common conflicts between generations
Communication and interaction styles
Habits and lifestyle choices
Child-rearing practices and values
Politics, religion and ideology
• Gender differences in intergenerational
relationships
• Mothers and daughters usually have closer
relationships than fathers and sons
• Middle-age adults called sandwich generation
• Having responsibility for both adolescent and
young adult children as well as aging parents
• Chapter 15: Physical and Cognitive
Development in Late Adulthood
• (380-404)
Longevity – how long we live
• Relates to life span and life expectancy
• Life span – maximum number of years an
individual can live
• Has remained at 120-125 years
Life expectancy
• (381)
• number of years the average person born in a
particular year will probably live
• (382)
• Differences in life expectancy
• In US, longer than some and shorter than
others
• Differences in life expectancy relate to health
conditions and medical care
• Women usually have longer life expectancy
• Related to social factors (health attitudes,
habits, lifestyles and occupations)
• Gender differences in life expectancy related
to physiological factors
• Women have more resistance to infections
and degenerative diseases
• Estrogen level helps protect against
arteriosclerosis
• Additional X chromosome may be associated
with higher antibody production
Biological theories of aging (383)
• Cellular clock theory (Hayflick, 1977)
• Cells can divide a maximum of 75-80 times
• As we age, cells become less capable of
dividing
• Why? Possibly because of telomeres or DNA
sequences that cap chromosomes
• After each cell division, telomeres become
shorter
• At certain point, cells no longer able to
reproduce
• Free-radical theory
• Aging occurs because of unstable oxygen
molecules (free-radicals) that result from the
metabolism process
• Free radicals can damage DNA and other cell
structures
• Increasing number of free radicals linked to
overeating, cancer and arthritis
• Hormonal stress theory
• Proposes aging of hormonal system lowers
resistance to stress and increases likelihood of
disease
• (384)
• Stressors stimulate release of certain
hormones
• Aging results in stress-related hormones
remaining at elevated levels longer
• Prolonged elevated levels of stress-hormones
related to increased risk for certain diseases
Aging brain
• Brain loses 5-10% of weight between ages 20
and 90
• Brain volume also decreases (can be as much
as 15% less in older adults)
• Prefrontal cortex shrinks more than other
areas
• General slowing of function in brain and spinal
cord begins in middle age and continues in old
age
• Associated with slowing reaction time
• Impairs performance on timed tests
Adapting brain
• Aging brain has significant repair capability
• Activities in old age can influence brain’s
development
• Neurogenesis or development of new nerve
cells can occur in humans
• Demonstrated in hippocampus and olfactory
area
• (385)
• Growth of dendrites can occur in humans and
can partially explain the adapting brain
• Dendritic growth occurs during 40’s-70’s
• Slows and disappears during the 90’s
• Changes in lateralization is another type of
adapting
• Lateralization = specialization of function in
one or the other brain hemisphere
• Lateralization occurs more in younger adults
than older adults
Nun study – Snowdon, 2002
• Annual assessment of cognitive and physical
functioning
• Findings -
• Idea density linked to higher brain weight,
fewer incidences of mild cognitive deficit, and
Alzheimer’s disease
• Positive emotions in early adulthood linked to
increased longevity
• (386)
• Those who were teachers most of their lives
showed more moderate deficits than those in
service occupations
Physical development
• Wrinkles and age spots most noticeable
changes
• Decreasing height because of bone loss in
spinal vertebra
• Decreasing weight after age 60 mostly
because of muscle loss
• Older adults move more slowly than younger
adults
• Regular walking can slow the rate of physical
decline
• Exercise and appropriate weight lifting
decreases the onset and rate of muscle loss
Sensory development
• Vision = visual acuity, color vision and depth
perception decline with aging
• Dark adaptation and tolerance for glare
decreases
• Color vision problems related to yellowing of
eye lens
3 diseases
• Glaucoma: damage to optic nerve because of
pressure resulting from buildup of fluid in the
eye
• Cataracts: thickening of eye lens causes vision
to become cloudy, opaque and distorted
• Macular degeneration: deterioration of
macula, an area of the retina, associated with
difficulty with peripheral vision
Hearing
• Impairment usually not a problem until late
adulthood
• usually because of cochlear degeneration
• Cochlea is primary nerve receptor for hearing
in inner ear
• Hearing aids can remedy some problems
Smell and taste
• Losses begin about age 60
• Decline reduces enjoyment of food and life
satisfaction
• Can result in increased consumption of
sweeter, saltier and spicier foods
Touch and pain (388)
• Decreasing sensitivity to touch in lower
extremities more so than upper extremities
• Lower sensitivity to pain can help coping with
disease and injury and
• Can also mask injury and illness requiring
treatment
Circulatory system and lungs
• Consistent blood pressures above 120/80 can
lead to heart attack, stroke or kidney disease
• Rise in blood pressure linked to illness,
obesity, anxiety and stiffening of blood vessels
• Lung capacity decreases 40% between 20-80
• Lung tissue loses elasticity, chest shrinks and
diaphragm weakens
Sexuality
• Can be lifelong with absence of disease and
belief that older people should be asexual
• Orgasm becomes less frequent with age
• More direct stimulation needed to achieve
erection
Health problems (389)
• Aging increases likelihood of developing
disease symptoms
• Chronic diseases increase in older adulthood
• Arthritis and hypertension most common
chronic problems
• Risk factors for disease include low income
and relationship conflicts
Causes of death in older adults
• Heart disease, cancer or stroke leading causes
• Also chronic lung diseases, pneumonia and
influenza and diabetes next in line
• Decrease in frequency of cardiovascular
disease and kidney problems could increase
longevity by as much as 10 years
Arthritis
• inflammation around joints accompanied by
pain, stiffness, movement problems
• Incurable
• Affects knees, hips, ankles and vertebrae
• Symptoms can be reduced by medication and
range-of-motion exercises as well as weight
reduction and surgery
Osteoporosis
• Associated with severe loss of bone tissue
• Main reason many adults walk with stooped
posture
• Women especially vulnerable
• Linked to deficiencies of calcium, Vitamin D,
estrogen and lack of exercise
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To prevent osteoporosis -
Eat foods rich in calcium
Exercise more
Avoid smoking
Exercise, nutrition and weight
• Exercise
• Can literally be difference between life and
death
• Positive effects for both men and women
• Strength training and stretching also
recommended
• Exercise - continued
• Can prevent falling down and being
institutionalized
• Linked to increased longevity
Nutrition and weight (391)
• Calorie restriction can increase longevity in
some animals
• CR linked to delayed appearance of chronic
problems
• CR can delay age-related rise in cholesterol
and triglycerides
• CR may also delay aging symptoms in CNS
Health treatment
• Adequate health treatment received about ½
the time
• Aging increases likelihood of being in a nursing
home or other extended care facility
• Quality of nursing home care varies widely
• 1/3 seriously deficient
Concerns relating to nursing home
care
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Patient’s medical care
Right to privacy
Access to medical information
Safety
Lifestyle freedom within physical and mental
capability
Alternatives to nursing facilities
• Home health care
• Day care centers
• Preventive medicine clinics
Rodin and Langer (1977) nursing
home study
• (393)
• Found important factor relating to health and
even survival -
• Patients’ feelings of control and selfdetermination
• Perceived control can make the difference
between life and death in a nursing facility
Cognitive functioning
• Multidimensionality and multidirectionality
• Cognition is complex
• Cognition may decline, improve or remain
stable during late adulthood
Sensory/motor and speed-ofprocessing dimensions
• Speed of processing declines during late
adulthood
• Wide variety in decline
• Likely because of declining functioning in brain
and central nervous system
Attention (394)
• Selective attention – focusing on specific
aspect of experience while ignoring others
• Divided attention – concentrating on 2 or
more activities at one time
• Sustained attention – state of readiness to
detect and respond to small changes in
environment occurring at random - vigilance
• Older adults less adept at selective attention
compared to younger adults
• less age difference in divided attention if
tasks are easy or automatic
• Few age differences in sustained attention
Memory
• Changes with age
• Different types of memory change in different
ways
• Episodic and semantic memory
• Episodic – remembering information relating
to where and when events occurred
• Semantic memory – general knowledge about
the world
• Fields of expertise, academic and everyday
knowledge, meanings of words, places and
things
• Younger adults better at episodic memory
compared to older adults
• In general, the older the memory, the less
accurate it is
• Older adults take longer to retrieve semantic
memory but usually can remember it
• Episodic memory declines more in older
adults compared to semantic memory
• Working memory and perceptual speed
• Working memory linked to short-term
memory
• More emphasis on memory as a place for
mental work
Perceptual speed
• amount of time needed to perform simple
perceptual-motor tasks
• Considerable decline in late adulthood
• Linked to decline in working memory
Explicit and implicit memory
• Explicit memory = memory of facts and
experiences we consciously know and can
state
• Also known as declarative memory
• Declines as we age
• Implicit memory = memory without conscious
recollection
• Involves skills and routine procedures
performed automatically
• Less likely to decline as we age
Wisdom
• (396)
• expert knowledge about practical aspects of
life
• Permits excellent judgment about important
matters
• Involves insight into human development and
life matters
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Wisdom – continued
Involves coping with difficult life problems
Focuses on pragmatic concerns
Findings :
1) high levels of wisdom are rare
2)factors other than age critical for wisdom
3)personality factors linked (openness to
experience, generativity and creativity)
Use it or lose it
• Mental activities likely to benefit cognitive
abilities:
• Reading books,
• doing crossword puzzles,
• going to lectures and concerts
• Several studies support the use it or lose it
idea – (396)
• Victoria Longitudinal study – middle aged and
older adults participated in intellectually
challenging activities
• Longitudinal study of 801 priests aged 65+ those who exercised their minds less likely to
develop Alzheimer’s Disease
Training cognitive skills (397)
• 2 key conclusions – improvement through
cognitive and physical fitness training
• 1) training can improve cognitive functioning
• 2)some loss in plasticity in late adulthood,
especially in 85+ group
• Evidence from Willis and Schaie, 1986
• Improved spatial orientation and reasoning
skills
Cognitive neuroscience and aging
• Cognitive neuroscience – links brain and
cognitive functioning
• Relies on brain-imaging techniques, including
fMRI and PET scans
• Reveals areas of brain active during various
cognitive activities
Work and retirement
• What percentage of adults continue to work?
• How productive are adults who work during
late old age?
• Who adjusts best to retirement?
Work (398)
• Beginning of 21st century, percentage of men
65+ who work full time is less than at the
beginning of 20th century
• Important change in adult work patterns is
increase in part-time work after retirement
• Important characteristics predicting working
after retirement:
• Good health
• Strong psychological commitment to work
after retirement
• Distaste for retirement
• Probability of employment positively linked to
educational attainment and married to
working wife
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Older workers have lower absenteeism
Fewer accidents
Increased job satisfaction
Compared to younger workers
Increasing number of middle and older adults
entering second and third career fields
• Sometimes completely different type of work
or a continuation of previous work
• Many older adults volunteer or work in active
volunteer organizations
• Unpaid work activities
• Options give opportunities for productive
activity, social interaction, and positive
identity
Best adjustment to retirement -
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Healthy
Well-educated
Have extended social network
Satisfied with their lives before retirement
Worst adjustment to retirement-
• Inadequate income
• Poor health
• Making adjustments to other stressors, such
as death of spouse
• Strong attachment to full-time work
• Lack control over retirement transition
Mental health
• Depression
• Major depression is mood disorder, deeply
unhappy, very low morale, self-derogatory and
bored
• Does not feel well, easily fatigued, poor
appetite, listless and weak motivation
• Symptoms linked to more economic
hardships, more negative social interactions,
decreased religious or spiritual tendencies
•
•
•
•
Depression links – continued
Low level physical exercise
Poor health
Experiencing pain
• Depression – continued
• Treatable condition
• 80% older adults with depressive symptoms
receive no treatment
• Combination of medication and
psychotherapy most effective
Dementia, Alzheimer Disease and
Parkinson disease
• (400)
• Dementia = global term for neurological
disorder in which primary symptom involves
deterioration of cognitive functioning
• Lose ability to care for self, can lose ability to
recognize familiar surroundings and people
• Alzheimer disease
• Progressive and irreversible brain disorder
• Gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning,
language and physical functioning
• 2 types distinguished -
• Early onset – before age 65
• Late-onset – after age 65
•
•
•
•
Early onset Alzheimer is rare
AD involves brain chemical acetylcholine
Brain shrinks and deteriorates
Deterioration associated with development of
amyloid plaques (dense deposits of protein
accumulating in blood vessels) and
neurofibrillary tangles (twisted fibers that
build up in neurons)
•
•
•
•
•
AD cause uncertain
Age is a factor
Genes likely contribute
Lifestyle can influence risk
Lower risk associated with good diet, exercise,
weight control
• Higher risk – obesity, smoking, atherosclerosis
and high cholesterol
Early detection and treatment of
AD
• Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) represents
transitional state
• Deficits in episodic memory can be important
early indicator of AD risk
• Special brain scans (MRI) can detect changes
in brain indicating early AD
Drugs approved for AD treatment
•
•
•
•
Donepezil (Aricept)
Rivastigmine (Excelon)
Galantamine (Razadyne)
Designed to improve memory and other
cognitive functions
• Increase levels of acetylcholine
Caring for individual with AD (402)
• Family can be important social support system
• Has costs for family members who can
become emotionally and physically drained
• Can result in higher levels of caregiver burden
and depression
• Lower levels of well-being and physical health
• Respite care – services provide temporary
relief for caregivers of those with diseases and
disabilities or who are elderly
• Important break away from providing chronic
care
Parkinson disease
•
•
•
•
•
chronic, progressive disease
Characterized by muscle tremors
Slowing movement
Partial facial paralysis
Triggered by deterioration of neurons
producing dopamine in brain
• Dopamine necessary for normal brain function
• Main treatment for PD – administering drugs
enhancing effect of dopamine
• Later treatment – administer L-dopa,
converted by brain into dopamine
• Chapter 16: Socioemotional development in
late adulthood
• (405-420)
• Bonus chapter
Theories of socioemotional
development
• Erickson’s theory (406)
• Activity theory (407)
• Socioemotional selectivity theory (407)
• Selective optimization with compensation
theory (408)
Personality and society
• Personality (409)
• Older adults in society (410)
• Stereotyping
• Policy issues in aging society
• (411)
• Income
• technology
Families and social relationships
•
•
•
•
412
Lifestyle diversity
Married older adults
Divorced and remarried older adults
• 413
• Cohabiting older adults
• Older adults and their adult children
• 414
• Friendship
• Social support and social integration
• 415
• Altruism and volunteerism
Ethnicity, gender and culture
• 416
• Ethnicity
• gender
• 417
• culture
• 418
• Successful aging
• Chapter 17: death, dying and grieving
• (421-434)
• Bonus chapter
Defining death and life/death
issues
•
•
•
•
422
Determining death
Decisions regarding life, death and health care
Natural death act and advance directive
• 423
• Euthanasia
• 424
• needed: better care for dying individuals
Death and sociohistorical cultural
contexts
• 424
• Changing historical circumstances
• 425
• Death in different cultures
Facing one’s own death
• 426-7
• Kubler-ross stages of dying
• 427
• Perceived control and denial
Coping with death of someone else
• 428-9
• Communicating with a dying person
• 429
• Grieving
• Dimensions of grieving
• 430
• Coping and type of death
• Making sense of the world
• 431
• Losing a life partner
• 432
• Forms of mourning