Chapter 15

• middle adulthood (between ages 40 and 65) is considered to be a distinct stage of life with its own societal norms, roles, opportunities, and challenges.
• five areas: near vision, dynamic vision (reading moving signs), sensitivity to light, visual search (locating a car in a parking lot), and speed of processing visual information
• Presbyopia - Age-related, progressive loss of the eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects due to loss of elasticity in the lens.
• Myopia - Nearsightedness
• Presbycusis - Age-related, gradual loss of hearing, which accelerates after age 55, especially with regard to sounds at higher frequencies.
• Basal metabolism - Use of energy to maintain vital functions.
• the aging brain can be described in two ways: as working more slowly and as having difficulty juggling multiple tasks.
• Myelin, the fatty sheath that lines nerve axons and helps impulses move more quickly through the brain, begins to break down with age
• atrophy in the left insula, an area of the brain associated with speech production
• fifth or sixth decade, the skin may become less taut and smooth as the layer of fat below the surface becomes thinner, collagen molecules more rigid, and elastin fibers more brittle..
• Middle-aged people tend to gain weight as a result of accumulation of body fat and lose height due to shrinkage of the intervertebral disks
• Vital capacity - Amount of air that can be drawn in with a deep breath and expelled.
• Menopause - Cessation of menstruation and of ability to bear children.
• Perimenopause - Period of several years during which a woman experiences physiological changes of menopause; includes first year after end of menstruation; also called climacteric.
• Erectile dysfunction - Inability of a man to achieve or maintain an erect penis sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance.
• Hypertension (chronically high blood pressure) is an increasingly important concern from midlife on as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. Almost 41 percent of adults aged 55–64 suffer from hypertension
• The most common type, mature-onset (type 2) diabetes, typically develops after age 30
• Women’s greater longevity has been attributed to genetic protection given by the second X chromosome
• Osteoporosis - Condition in which the bones become thin and brittle as a result of rapid calcium depletion.
• Mammography - Diagnostic X-ray examination of the breasts.
• Hormone therapy (HT) - Treatment with artificial estrogen, sometimes in combination with the hormone progesterone, to relieve or prevent symptoms caused by decline in estrogen levels after menopause.
• Stress - Response to physical or psychological demands.
• Stressors - Perceived environmental demands that may produce stress.
• Fluid intelligence - Type of intelligence, proposed by Horn and Cattell that is applied to novel problems and is relatively independent of educational and cultural influences.
• Crystallized intelligence - Type of intelligence, proposed by Horn and Cattell, involving the ability to remember and use learned information; it is largely dependent on education and culture.
• Expertise —a form of crystallized intelligence that is related to the process of encapsulation.
• Encapsulation - allows expertise to compensate for declines in information-processing ability by bundling relevant knowledge together.
• An important feature of post formal thought is its integrative nature. Mature adults integrate logic with intuition and emotion; they put together conflicting facts and ideas; and they compare new information with what they already know.
• Creativity seems to be the product of particular social contexts as well as individual proclivities.
• Individual differences also can make creativity more likely.
• Since then, the trend has reversed. Before bringing their working lives to a complete stop, people may reduce work hours or days, gradually moving into retirement over a number of years. This practice is called phased retirement.
• About half of workers ages 55 to 65 take a bridge job before moving to full retirement