old age.docx

**The Characteristics of Old Age** According to the National Library of Medicine (2014) after age 30 people tend to lose lean tissue, and some of the cells of the muscles, liver, kidney, and other organs are lost. Tissue loss reduces the amount of water in your body and bones may lose some of their...

**The Characteristics of Old Age** According to the National Library of Medicine (2014) after age 30 people tend to lose lean tissue, and some of the cells of the muscles, liver, kidney, and other organs are lost. Tissue loss reduces the amount of water in your body and bones may lose some of their minerals and become less dense. Old Age or Late adulthood is a time of declining physical skills---such as loss of height, decline in vision and hearing, and cardiovascular decline. Sleep also becomes more problematic. Sexual changes occur as women enter menopause, many middle-aged men begin to experience erectile dysfunction, and couples engage less frequently in sexual intercourse ( American Psychology Association, 2021) *Physical Appearance and Movement* Older adults move more slowly than young adults, and this slowing occurs for movements with a wide range of difficulty (Sakuma & Yamaguchi, 2010) Even when they perform everyday tasks such as reaching and grasping, moving from one place to another, and continuous movement, older adults tend to move more slowly than when they were young **The Course of Physical Development in Old Age (Late Adulthood)** **The Aging Brain** *The Shrinking, Slowing Brain* On average, the brain loses 5 to 10 percent of its weight between the ages of 20 and 90. Brain volume also decreases (Bondare,2007). One study found that the volume of the brain was 15 percent less in older adults than younger adults (Shan & others, 2005). Scientists are not sure why these changes occur but think they might result from a decrease in dendrites, damage to the myelin sheath that covers axons, or simply the death of brain cells. However, the current consensus is that under normal conditions adults are unlikely to lose brain cells (Nelson, 2008). A general slowing of function in the brain and spinal cord begins in middle adulthood and accelerates in late adulthood (Birren, 2002). Both physical coordination and intellectual performance are affected. For example, after age 70 many adults no longer show a knee jerk, and by age 90 most reflexes are much slower (Spence, 1989). The slowing of the brain can impair the performance of older adult on intelligence tests and various cognitive tasks, especially those that are timed (Birren, Woods, & Williams, 1980). *The Adapting Brain* If the brain were a computer, this description of the aging brain might lead you to think that it could not do much of anything. However, unlike a computer the brain has remarkable repair capability. Changes in lateralization may provide one type of adaptation in aging adults. Lateralization is the specialization of function in one hemisphere of the brain or the other.Using neuroimaging techniques, researchers found that brain activity in the prefrontal cortex is lateralized less in older adults than in younger adults when they are engaging in cognitive tasks (Cabeza, 2002; Rossi & others, 2005). For example, Figure 17.6 shows that when younger adults are given the task of recognizing words they have previously seen, they process the information primarily in the right hemisphere; older adults are more likely to use both hemispheres (Madden & others, 1999). The decrease in lateralization in older adults might play a compensatory role in the aging brain. That is, using both hemispheres may improve the cognitive functioning of older adults. *The Immune System* The extended duration of stress and diminished restorative processes in older adults may accelerate the effects of aging on immunity. Alongside, malnutrition involving low levels of protein is linked to a decrease in T cells that destroy infected cells and hence to deterioration in the immune system (Hughes & others, 2010). Exercise can improve immune system functioning (De la Fuente & Gimenez-Liort, 2010). Because of the decline in the functioning of the immune system that accompanies aging, a healthy and engaging lifestyle is advised for the elderly. *Sensory Development* Most older people cannot see, hear, feel, taste, or smell as well today as they did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Why? The normal aging process causes gradual losses to the sensory system. Generally, these changes begin around the age of 50 years. **Vision -** With aging, visual acuity, color vision, and depth perception decline. Several diseases of the eye also may emerge in aging adults. **Hearing -** Older adults often don't recognize that they have a hearing problem, deny that they have one, or accept it as a part of growing old. The decline in vision and hearing is much greater in individuals 75 years and older than in individuals 65 to 74 years of age (Charness & Bosman, 1992). **Smell and Taste -** Most older adults lose some of their sense of smell or taste, or both (Murphy, 2009). These losses often begin around 60 years of age (Hawkes, 2006)**.** **Touch and Pain** - Changes in touch and pain are also associated with aging (Schmader, 2010). One study found thatwith aging individuals could detect touch less in the lower extremities than in the upper extremities (Corso, 1977). *The Cirulatory System and Lungs* Cardiovascular disorders increase in late adulthood in one analysis, 57 percent of 80-year-old-men and 60 percent of 81-year-old women had hypertension, and 32 percent of the men and 31 percent of the women had experienced a stroke (Aronow, 2007).Lung capacity drops 40 percent between the ages of 20 and 80, even without disease. Lungs lose elasticity, the chest shrinks, and the diaphragm weakens (Cherniack & Cherniack, 2007).