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PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN LATE ADULTHOOD
15
ESSENTIALS OF LIFE-SPAN
DEVELOPMENT
JOHN W. SANTROCK
3e

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15-2
CHAPTER OUTLINE
• Longevity, biological aging, and physical
development
• Health
• Cognitive functioning
• Work and retirement

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15-3
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Longevity
• Biological theories of aging
• The aging brain
• Physical development
• Sexuality

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15-4
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Longevity
• Life span and life expectancy
• Life span: Maximum number of years an individual can live
• Between 120–125 years
• Life expectancy: Number of years that the average person born
in a particular year will probably live
• Average is 78.3 years

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15-5
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Differences in life expectancy
• Female life expectancy 80.8 years, males 75.7 years
• Beginning in the mid-thirties, women outnumber men because
of:
• Social factors such as:
• Health attitudes
• Habits
• Lifestyles
• Occupation
• Biological factors

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15-6
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Centenarians
• Genes play an important role in surviving to an extreme old age
along with:
• Family history
• Health (weight, diet, smoking, and exercise)
• Education
• Personality
• Lifestyle

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15-7
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Biological theories of aging
• Evolutionary theory: Natural selection has not eliminated
many harmful conditions and nonadaptive characteristics
in older adults
• Cellular clock theory: Cells can divide a maximum of about
75 to 80 times
• Age makes cells less capable of dividing
• Telomeres – Tips of chromosomes; DNA sequences that cap
chromosomes

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15-8
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Free-radical theory: People age because:
• When cells metabolize energy
• By-products include unstable oxygen molecules known as free
radicals
• Emphasis on a decay of mitochrondria–tiny bodies within cells
that supply essential energy for function, growth, and repair
• Hormonal stress theory: Aging in the body’s hormonal
system can lower resistance to stress and increase the
likelihood of disease

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15-9
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• The aging brain
• The shrinking, slowing brain
• Brain loses 5% to 10% of its weight between the ages of 20
and 90 years
• Volume decreases due to:
• Shrinkage of neurons
• Lower numbers of synapses
• Reduced length of axon
• Slowing of function in the brain and spinal cord begins in
middle adulthood and accelerates in late adulthood
• Affecting physical coordination and intellectual performance

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15-10
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Aging - Linked to a reduction in the production of certain
neurotransmitters
• The adapting brain
• Neurogenesis - Generation of new neurons
• Dendritic growth
• Decrease in lateralization
• Improve cognitive functioning

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15-11
FIGURE 15.2 - THE DECREASE IN BRAIN
LATERALIZATION IN OLDER ADULTS

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15-12
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• The Nun Study
• Intriguing ongoing investigation of aging in 678 nuns
• Research provide hope that scientists will discover ways to tap
into the brain’s capacity to adapt in order to prevent and treat
brain diseases

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15-13
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Physical appearance and movement
• Most noticeable changes - Wrinkles and age spots
• Shorter with aging due to bone loss in their vertebrae
• Weight drops after age 60
• Muscle loss
• Older adults move more slowly

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15-14
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Sensory development
• Vision
• Sensory decline in older adults is linked to a decline in cognitive
functioning
• Color vision
• Depth perception

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15-15
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Diseases of the eye
• Cataracts: Thickening of the lens of the eye
• Causes vision to become cloudy, opaque, and distorted
• Glaucoma: Damage to the optic nerve because of:
• Pressure created by a buildup of fluid in the eye
• Macular degeneration: Deterioration of the macula of the retina
• Corresponds to the focal center of the visual field

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15-16
FIGURE 15.3 - MACULAR
DEGENERATION

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15-17
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Hearing
• Impairments becomes an impediment
• Some, but not all, hearing problems can be corrected by
hearing aids
• Smell and taste
• Smell and taste losses typically begin about age 60
• Touch and pain
• Decline in touch sensitivity is not problematic for most
• Decreased sensitivity to pain can help adults cope with disease
and injury
• Mask injuries and illnesses that need to be treated

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15-18
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• The circulatory system and lungs
• Cardiovascular disorders increase in late adulthood
• Lung capacity drops 40 percent between the age of 20
and 80, even without disease
• Can be improved with diaphragm-strengthening exercises

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15-19
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Sleep
• 50 % of older adults complain of having difficulty sleeping
• Result in earlier death and is linked to a lower level of cognitive
functioning

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15-20
LONGEVITY, BIOLOGICAL AGING, AND
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
• Sexuality
• Orgasm becomes less frequent in males with age
• Many are sexually active as long as they are healthy

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15-21
HEALTH
• Health problems
• Exercise, nutrition, and weight
• Health treatment

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15-22
HEALTH
• Health problems
• Probability of having some disease or illness increases with
age
• Arthritis is the most common followed by hypertension
• Causes of death in older adults
• Nearly 60% of 65–74-year-olds die of cancer or cerebrovascular
disease
• 75–84 and 85+ age groups
• Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death
• Ethnicity is linked with death rates of older adults

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15-23
HEALTH
• Arthritis: Inflammation of the joints accompanied by pain,
stiffness, and movement problems
• Osteoporosis: Extensive loss of bone tissue
• Accidents - 6th leading cause of death in older adults
• Falls are the leading cause

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15-24
FIGURE 15.4 - PHYSICAL FITNESS AND
MORTALITY

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15-25
HEALTH
• Exercise, nutrition, and weight
• Exercise
• Linked to prevention of common chronic diseases and
increased longevity
• Associated with improvement in the treatment of many diseases
• Improves older adults’ cellular functioning and immune system
functioning

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15-26
HEALTH
• Nutrition and weight
• Getting adequate nutrition
• Avoiding overweight and obesity
• Role of calorie restriction in improving health and extending life

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15-27
HEALTH
• Health treatment
• Quality of nursing homes and other extended-care facilities
for older adults varies enormously
• Source of continuing national concern
• Factor related to health and survival in a nursing home:
• Patient’s feelings of control and self-determination
• Geriatric nurses - Helpful in treating the health care
problems

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15-28
FIGURE 15.6 - PERCEIVED CONTROL
AND MORTALITY

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15-29
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Multidimensionality and multidirectionality
• Use it or lose it
• Training cognitive skills
• Cognitive neuroscience and aging

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15-30
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Multidimensionality and multidirectionality
• Attention
• Selective attention
• Divided attention
• Sustained attention

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15-31
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Memory
• Episodic memory: Retention of information about the where
and when of life’s happenings
• Younger adults have better episodic memory
• Semantic memory: Person’s knowledge about the world
• Older adults take longer to retrieve semantic information, but usually
they can ultimately retrieve it
• Working memory and perceptual speed - Decline during the
late adulthood years

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15-32
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Explicit memory: Memory of facts and experiences that
individuals consciously know and can state
• Implicit memory: Memory without conscious recollection
• Noncognitive factors - Health, education, and
socioeconomic status can influence an older adult’s
performance on memory tasks

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15-33
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Executive functioning
• Involves managing one's thoughts to engage in goal-
directed behavior and self control:
• General aspects of executive functioning decline in late
adulthood
• Considerable variability in executive functioning among older
adults

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15-34
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Wisdom: Expert knowledge about the practical
aspects of life that permits excellent judgment
about important matters
• High levels of wisdom are rare
• Factors other than age are critical for wisdom to develop to
a high level
• Personality-related factors are better predictors of wisdom
than cognitive factors

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15-35
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Use it or lose it
• Certain mental activities can benefit the maintenance of
cognitive skills
• Reading books, doing crossword puzzles, going to lectures and
concerts
• Research suggests that:
• Mental exercise may reduce cognitive decline

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15-36
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Training cognitive skills
• Improve the cognitive skills of many older adults
• Some loss in plasticity in late adulthood, especially in the
oldest-old
• Cognitive vitality of older adults can be improved through
cognitive and physical fitness training

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15-37
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
• Cognitive neuroscience and aging
• Cognitive neuroscience - Discipline that studies links
between the brain and cognitive functioning
• Changes in the brain can influence cognitive functioning,
and changes in cognitive functioning can influence the
brain

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15-38
WORK AND RETIREMENT
• Work
• Adjustment to retirement

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15-39
WORK AND RETIREMENT
• Work
• Older workers have lower rates of absenteeism, fewer
accidents, and higher job satisfaction than their younger
counterparts

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15-40
WORK AND RETIREMENT
• Retirement in the U.S.
• When people reach their sixties, the life path they follow is
less clear
• Some individuals don’t retire, continuing in their career jobs
• Some retire from their career work and then take up a new and
different job
• Some retire from career jobs but do volunteer work
• Some retire from a post-retirement job and go on to yet another
job
• Some move in and out of the workforce, so they never really
have a “career” job from which they retire
• Some individuals who are in poor health move to a disability
status and eventually into retirement
• Some who are laid off define it as “retirement”

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15-41
WORK AND RETIREMENT
• Older adults who adjust best to retirement:
• Are healthy
• Have adequate income
• Are active
• Are educated
• Have an extended social network including both friends and
family
• Usually were satisfied with their lives before they retired

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15-42
MENTAL HEALTH
• Depression
• Dementia, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson disease

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15-43
MENTAL HEALTH
• Major depression: Mood disorder in which the
individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-
derogatory, and bored
• Less common among older adults than younger adults
• Common predictors
• Earlier depressive symptoms
• Poor health or disability
• Loss events
• Low social support

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15-44
MENTAL HEALTH
• Dementia: Involve a deterioration of mental
functioning
• 23 percent of women and 17 percent of men 85 years and
older are at risk for developing dementia

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15-45
MENTAL HEALTH
• Alzheimer disease: Gradual deterioration of
memory, reasoning, language, and eventually,
physical function
• Women are likely to develop Alzheimer disease because
they live longer than men
• Alzheimer involves a deficiency in the brain messenger
chemical acetylcholine
• Formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles

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15-46
FIGURE 15.9 - TWO BRAINS: NORMAL
AGING AND ALZHEIMER DISEASE

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15-47
MENTAL HEALTH
• Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
• Represents a transitional state between the cognitive changes
of normal aging and very early disease
• fMRI shows smaller brain regions involved in memory for
individuals with MCI

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15-48
MENTAL HEALTH
• Drug treatment of Alzheimer disease
• Cholinerase inhibitors and other drugs slow the downward
progression of the disease
• Caring for individuals with Alzheimer disease
• Support is often emotionally and physically draining for the
family
• Respite care services

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15-49
MENTAL HEALTH
• Parkinson disease: A chronic, progressive disease
characterized by muscle tremors, slowing of
movement, and facial paralysis
• Triggered by the degeneration of dopamine-producing
neurons in the brain
• Several treatments are available