old

• Women


  • Live longer than men
  • Have lower mortality rates at all ages than men
• Reasons for women's longer lives

  • Greater tendency to take care of themselves and to seek medical care
  • Higher level of social support they enjoy
  • Rise in women's socioeconomic status in recent decades
• Theories of aging


  • Endocrine Theory
  • Immunological Theory
  • Evolutionary Theory
  • Variable-Rate Theories
  • Wear-and-Tear Theory
  • Free-Radical Theory
  • Rate-of-Living Theory
  • Autoimmune Theory
• Endocrine Theory


  Biological clocks act through hormones to control the pace of aging
• Immunological Theory


  Programmed decline in immune system functions leads to increased vulnerability to infectious disease and thus to aging and death
• Evolutionary Theory


  Aging is an evolved trait thus genes that promote reproduction are selected at higher rates than genes that extend lives
• Variable-Rate Theories


  Aging is the results of random processes that vary from person to person (Error theories)
• Wear-and-Tear Theory


  Cells and tissues have vital parts that wear out
• Free-Radical Theory


  Accumulated damage from oxygen radicals causes cells and eventually organs to stop functioning
• Rate-of-Living Theory


  The greater an organism's rate of metabolism, the shorter its life span
• Autoimmune Theory


  Immune system becomes confused and attacks its own body cells
• Survival Curve


  Represents the percentage of people or animals alive at various age
• The most fruitful area for longevity interventions should be focused on risk reduction and living a healthy lifestyle
• Older skin


  • Becomes paler and less elastic
  • Varicose veins appears in legs
• Older adults


  • Become shorter due to disks between spinal vertebrae atrophy
  • Lungs become less effective due to reductions in lung volume, atrophy in muscles involved in breathing, and reductions in the ability of cilia
  • More likely to suffer from arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)
  • Muscle walls thicken
  • Valves that control the flow of blood in and out of the heart may no longer open completely
• Reserve Capacity


  Backup capacity that helps body system function to their utmost limits in times of stress
• Older brain


  • Gradually diminishes in volume and weight, particularly in the frontal and temporal regions
  • Hippocampus (memory area) also shrinks
  • Decrease in the number of dopamine neurotransmitters due to losses of synapses
• Older eyes


  • Need more light to see
  • More sensitive to glare
  • May have trouble locating and reading signs
• Cataracts


  Cloudy or opaque areas in the lens of the eyes, are common in older adults
• Age-Related Macular Degeneration


  Leading cause of visual impairment in older adults; the retinal cells in the macula degenerate over time, and the center of the retina gradually loses the ability to sharply distinguish fine details
• Glaucoma


  Irreversible damage to the optic nerve caused by increased pressure in the eye
• Older adults


  • Loss of strength is greater for lower than for upper limbs
  • Falls, the most common cause of fractures, become increasingly common with age
• Functional Fitness


  Exercises or activities that improve daily activity
• Older adults


  • Sleep and dream less than before driven by the normative changes in circadian rhythms
• Older men


  • Take longer to develop erection and to ejaculate, may need more manual stimulation, may experience longer intervals between erections or may have difficulty doing it
• Older women


  • Have difficulty in arousal, orgasm, etc.
• Lifelong program of exercise may prevent many physical changes once associated with normal aging
• Inactivity contributes to heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and high blood pressure
• Dementia


  The general term for physiologically caused cognitive and behavioral decline sufficient to interfere with daily activities
• Alzheimer's


  Most common type of dementia, caused by specific changes in the brain (abnormal build up of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaque in the brain) (Amnesia, Aphasia, Agnosia, Apraxia, Anomia)
• Vascular dementia


  Caused by strokes or other issues of blood flow in the brain; may be due to diabetes and high cholesterol; have stroke-like episodes
• Lewy Bodies dementia


  Have movement or balance (stiffness or trembling); daytime sleepiness, confusion, or staring; trouble sleeping at night and visual hallucinations
• Frontotemporal dementia


  Leads to personality and behavior changes and problems in language skills
• Huntington's disease


  Resulted from gene mutation which impacts movement, behavior, and cognition; personality also changes, loss of coordination, difficulty in swallowing and speaking
• Parkinson's disease


  Uncontrollable movements, tremor, stiffness, slow movement, prevalent in men than women; nerve cells in basal ganglia become impaired; L-Dopa as treatment
• Language problems in older adults

  Probably results of the problems accessing and retrieving information from the memory
• Dysfunction in frontal lobes and hippocampus


  May cause false memories
• Older adults


  • Seem to have difficulty encoding new episodic memories because of difficulties in forming and later recalling a coherent and cohesive episode
  • Storage also deteriorate to the point retrieval becomes difficult
• Terminal Drop


  Rapid decline in well-being and life satisfaction approximately 3-5 years before death
• Close marital relationship


  Can moderate the negative psychological effects of functional disabilities by reducing psychological distress