Hi everyone,
We have a very interesting (though a bit depressing) obstacle here: aging-related cognitive decline. Would love to know what you think of it, and how you think we can work with and around the obstacle.
Summary
The normal aging process is accompanied by some cognitive decline in areas and skills that include processing speed, motor responses, attention span, memory, and mental flexibility. This phenomenon can have an impact on the employment potential of the elderly, and affect their self-confidence.
Description
While there is much focus on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, an inevitable side-effect of aging (so far, at least) is that it is accompanied by a cognitive decline. In other words, even elderly folks who do not suffer from dementia or some other severe form of cognitive mental impairment, will still experience some changes to their cognitive capacity.
Not all cognitive abilities diminish with aging. Some, skills and abilities - especially ones that are well-practiced and well-known to the individual, like vocabulary or language - may actually improve with age. However, fluid cognitive abilities are subject to a significant decline.
These include:
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Processing speed and speed of motor responses, which start to decline in the 30s, and are critical for driving and personal interactions;
Selective attention, which indicates a person’s ability to concentrate on certain occurrences while filtering out irrelevant information, and which is critical for driving a car.
Working memory, which indicates a person’s capacity to hold certain ideas in mind for a short duration. Elderly people with a decline in working memory can have difficulty performing mental calculations or working with long strings of numbers.
Memory acquisition, encoding and retrieval, which can impact learning.
Visual construction skills, which indicate a person’s ability to assemble parts together - for example, when assembling an Ikea piece of furniture.
Mental flexibility, which declines significantly at the seventh decade of life.
- Response inhibition, which indicates one’s ability to consider an alternative and novel response to new stimuli, instead of repeating an old behavioral pattern.
It should be noted that not all elderly folks experience the same level or extent of cognitive decline, as there is great variability between individuals in this respect.
Impact
Age-related cognitive decline means that some common activities, like driving, are more difficult and pose more risk to the average elderly person.
Additionally, the cognitive decline may make it more difficult for the elderly to perform well in their workplace. Many elderly people in South Korea, Mexico, Japan, Switzerland and Turkey, choose to retire before the official pension age - possibly because of the cognitive decline they experience, and which may hinder them at work.
Additionally, workers in some professions in the U.S., like pilots and (in some states) judges, are required to retire upon reaching a certain age, mainly because of aging-related cognitive decline which could influence the individual’s ability of performing the task safely.
User Groups
While cognitive decline often starts at the third decade of life, its impact peaks towards the seventh decade or later. Therefore the user groups that suffer the most because of the consequences of cognitive decline are people aged 60+.
Difficulties
It is generally difficult to deal even with abnormal cognitive decline, caused by neurodegenerative diseases and strokes. Normal cognitive decline is not as insidious or devastating as Alzheimer’s disease or severe dementia, and thus is perceived as part of the normal aging process, which does not require treatment. Furthermore, the causes of cognitive decline are not yet well-understood.
