We have all been affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD), or a related disorder that results in declines in cognitive ability uncharacteristic of normal aging. For some the familiarity may be all too salient – a grandparent, uncle, or elementary school teacher. Others may have a more distant connection – perhaps they know a friend whose grandmother is struggling with the disease. My Aunt was recently diagnosed. We’re not particularly close, but the news has certainly taken an emotional toll on my extended family. Regardless of personal connection, AD is extremely prevalent, and as the population continues to gray, its impact is becoming increasingly widespread.
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“Don’t ever get old,” “I’m not what I used to be,” and “I’m old now, I can’t do that.” I think we’ve all at one time or another heard phrases like this coming from older adults. With old age, both body and mind are not as sharp as in times of youth. For instance, before his knee replacement, my grandfather had difficulty simply standing up or walking around his house. His knee replacement has helped him immensely though, and he is much more agile and happier now. Unfortunately, this sometimes-reversible physical deterioration and pain associated with aging is accompanied by potentially crippling declines in cognitive functioning. Important everyday activities like navigating a vehicle in heavy traffic, learning and retaining someone’s name, or remembering to take medication on time all become more difficult to execute in old age. An important question, then, becomes whether or not there are certain behaviors or practices that can help to slow cognitive decline, similar to how my grandfather’s knee replacement helped his physical wellbeing.
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Do you ever find it tough to motivate yourself to lace up those sneakers and hit the gym or the trail for a run? Does it make it easier when you have a friend pushing you to join them? I know for me, if the weather isn’t perfect, there’s no way I’m leaving my room unless someone else is already dressed and ready to go. Exercising with others may be more beneficial than just helping you get off the couch, with even stronger effects as we age.
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At my grandfather’s 89th birthday last year, everyone was having a blast, especially since my grandfather made jokes about his aging mind and body constantly. However, the funniest moment of all came when my older sister Liz made him a martini. As a result of poor judgment, she decided to make him a watered-down drink. This did not go over well. When my grandfather took the first sip, he said to my sister, “Elizabeth, I don’t know what this is, but it is not a martini.” The whole family burst out laughing, and my grandfather chastised my sister for trying to trick him. After the situation was ironed out with a real martini or two, the weekend continued without any more hiccups. My grandfather remains very particular about his food and beverages to this day, further proven by the fact that he requested a thirteen layer cake for his 90th birthday this past summer. Fortunately, this year all his drinks were made properly by my uncle, who used to work as a bar tender.
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Everyone has to get old, and if you aren’t old yet, you likely have an older friend or relative in your life with whom you are close. Many seniors, like my grandmother, complain that their memory is failing them in their old age. Nani forgets where she placed her keys, has trouble recalling recently-learned names, and sometimes even forgets childhood facts. It can be difficult watching someone you love lose bits and pieces of their memory, and it’s even more upsetting to hear their sadness when they talk about how much they think they’ve lost. Because of these difficulties associated with age, and because there is such a fear in our society of this inevitable course, it isn’t surprising that there is lots of incredible cognitive aging research being conducted. One of the more interesting articles recently published investigated not only memory ability in healthy older adults, but metamemory ability.
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Have you ever had a moment in which your mother forgot where she had put her phone, which she says she was just using it a minute ago? Or have you ever walked out of a store empty handed because you couldn’t remember precisely what it was that you were going to buy? I have.
Such forgetting occurs more frequently among older adults (60 -78yrs old) than among younger adults (17 – 27yrs old). In other words, older adults forget more often than younger adults. In addition, older adults are also more easily distracted. For example, when my dad once turned on a television while my grandma and I had a conversation, grandma got distracted by the show on television. She then forgot that she was in a conversation just a moment ago and started watching the show with my dad. At moments like this, I could not stop wondering why can’t my grandmother just ignore the television like I do.
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When I was a senior in high school, a close friend of mine was asked to help another friend’s older brother with a psychology experiment. She was going to be singing tracks for him, and all I remember was feeling entirely unsurprised, because she was the best singer I knew and I always been a little jealous of her. Fast-forward four years, and I’m searching through PsycInfo, looking at articles about music and memory, when I come across an incredibly familiar last name. “That’s so weird,” I think, “how many Simmons-Stern’s could there possibly be in the world?” So I read the article, and as it turns out, it’s the very same study that was being created my senior year, published in a real journal. Not only that, but it’s an incredibly interesting read, which is why I’m going to share it with all of you. Read more…
When I was a kid, my dad’s mom was always the sharpest, most pointedly funny person at our family gatherings. She was smart and witty, and also incredibly independent, living alone in a split-level house and always baking things to bring to our parties (even if everything she made tasted like cigarettes). When she was in her late 70s, however, she fell in the house and broke her hip, leading to a surgery and fairly lengthy hospital stay. We visited several times during her hospitalization, and I remember that even as a kid I could tell something wasn’t right. My grandmother wasn’t her normal self – she seemed like she was processing slower, and she sometimes became confused about what was happening, which I had never seen happen to her. Read more…
I bet you remember as a kid being told by your parents to “eat your veggies, even the greens.” But I bet you don’t remember your parents telling THEIR parents to eat their veggies. The vast effects from eating vegetables and having a healthy diet in younger developmental stages are enumerable, but consequences of diet on elderly populations are often overlooked.
Figure 1. Vitamin K can be naturally found in several leafy green vegetables, as shown above.
What is in these magical green veggies (lettuce, kale, spinach) anyway? Amongst other things, a notable compound present is vitamin K. This vitamin is most notably used in the body to promote protective blood clotting. However, other potential roles of vitamin K in the brain have been examined in rats. Vitamin K is present in high levels in the brain, and proteins that rely on vitamin K to function are also found in the brain. These same studies found evidence for vitamin K to specifically have effects in the aging brain. Older rats that were fed a vitamin K rich diet had better spatial learning memory than those fed a low vitamin K diet. This phenomenon was only observed in older rats, not the younger populations. Read more…
Innocent Criminal: The Science behind Inaccurate Eye-witness Testimony
Ever noticed CSI shows? Every time a crime is committed, the potential perpetrator is told to stand behind a glass frame. Along with him or her are more people. What’s intriguing about all of this is that every single “false criminal” looks very similar to the original criminal. Whether it be the tattoos, the similar age, or maybe even the clothing, there is a sense of similarity across the spectrum. That similarity is done for a reason. Suspects who have distinctive features like a birthmark or scar were the easiest to identify in a line-up. To prevent any bias, all those in the lineup have similar features and physical stature to the perpetrator. While in theory this seems legitimate, in reality there are flaws. Previous research has shown that older adults show a decline in visual discrimination over time. Recollection of facts and events gets more difficult as people age, so older adults struggle to connect faces to distinctive features. This supports the idea that older adults with associative deficit hypothesis have a harder time identifying distinct features of a face when they are presented with other faces that look familiar.
Research has shown that eyewitness testimony is not a very accurate way to identify suspects who may have committed a crime; yet, eyewitness testimony is one of the most critical pieces of evidence that investigators use to build a case. New research is being done to figure out ways that law enforcement can help individuals who may have witnessed a crime, properly identify the perpetrator. Distinctive features such as moles or tattoos are things that help differentiate people. Witnesses rely heavily on these distinctive features when they are asked to identify a suspect.
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