Group Of Elderly Adults Research Articles

Episodic memory deficit in elderly adults with suspected delusional disorder.

This study examined memory functions in two groups of elderly adults with and without suspected delusional disorder (SDD). The samples consisted of 66 normal elderly subjects and 33 elderly subjects with symptoms, as reported by close informants, of delusional disorder. Subjects were matched with regard to age, gender and education, and there were no differences between the two groups with regard to performance of visuo-spatial and primary memory tasks. Subjects were examined concerning a variety of episodic recall and recognition tasks. The results demonstrated that subjects with SDD performed at a lower level than controls for some episodic memory tasks (i.e. recall tasks). There were no group differences in measures of episodic recognition or in the primary memory tasks. In addition, the group of subjects with SDD was, to the same extent as the control group, able to utilize cognitive support in the form of organization, cues and previous knowledge in order to enhance episodic memory. In summary, it appears that elderly adults with SDD have a mild episodic memory deficit in the absence of other cognitive deficits.

Measures of postural steadiness: differences between healthy young and elderly adults.

Measures of postural steadiness are used to characterize the dynamics of the postural control system associated with maintaining balance during quiet standing. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relative sensitivity of center-of-pressure (COP)-based measures to changes in postural steadiness related to age. A variety of time and frequency domain measures of postural steadiness were compared between a group of twenty healthy young adults (21-35 years) and a group of twenty healthy elderly adults (66-70 years) under both eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions. The measures that identified differences between the eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions in the young adult group were different than those that identified differences between the eye conditions in the elderly adult group. Mean velocity of the COP was the only measure that identified age-related changes in both eye conditions, and differences between eye conditions in both groups. The results of this study will be useful to researchers and clinicians using COP-based measures to evaluate postural steadiness.

An 11-year follow-up of motor speech abilities in elderly adults

An 11-year follow-up study of a group of elderly adults suggested a speed-accuracy trade-off for labial and lingual movements associated with syllable repetition tasks. Pre-post repetition data from one subject, apparently healthy in 1980 but diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984–85, were analysed separately from the rest of the group. Rate/timing variability relationships for this subject differed significantly from ‘normally ageing’ peers. As perturbation measures have been shown to be relevant indicators of laryngeal behaviour, rate/timing control measures may also prove to be useful, age-sensitive indices of supralaryngeal speech motor control.

Urinary catheter-related infections among home care patients.

Urinary catheterization is a common indication for home care nursing services among older adults, and catheter-related urinary tract infections commonly occur among these patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of urinary catheter-related infections among a group of elderly adults cared for in the home, the characteristics of those who acquire urinary tract infections as opposed to those who do not become infected, and the influence of the interval between catheter changes on the incidence of urinary tract infections.

The Effect of Gender and Race on the Measurement Properties of the CES-D in Older Adults

Having observed a three-fold difference in the prevalence of significant symptoms of depression among four race-gender groups of elderly adults attending an urban primary care practice, we investigated the extent to which these differences might be explained by variability in the measurement properties of the Centers for Epidemiologic Studies depression scale (CES-D). Although the internal consistency of the CES-D was acceptable for all groups, 5% of our patients were excluded for inability to complete the minimum required number of CES-D items, and nearly 40% of patients required response imputation for the allowable one to four items that they could not answer. Imputation was most frequently required for items tapping positive affect. Principal components factor analysis was performed separately for respondents answering all items and for respondents with imputed values. In both analyses we found important race-gender differences in factor structure. Moreover, the factor structure for those with imputed values was markedly different from that of respondents answering all items, including a dissolution of the positive affect dimension. Neither the race-gender differences in factor structure nor the differences among those with and without imputed data were resolved by eliminating respondents with poor education, cognitive impairment, or alcoholism, or by varying the assumptions for data imputation. However, the disparities in factor structure were essentially resolved by eliminating five CES-D items, suggesting the need to modify the CES-D in populations like ours. Although eliminating these five items results in a more pure factor structure, it does not resolve the differences in prevalence of depressive symptoms. These differences may, however, be partially due to differential response tendencies among the race-gender groups.

Analysis of an Oral Paradigm for the Trail Making Test

Performance on the Trail Making Test is dependent upon multiple factors (e.g., motor speed, visual search, symbolic set shifting, capacity to sustain effort), many of which are difficult to assess differentially using the test's traditional administration, or with certain clinical populations (e.g., blind or grossly motor-impaired individuals). The present study investigated a motor-free, vision-free, oral version of the Trail Making Test in two groups of younger adults and one group of elderly adults. The results demonstrated that although there were age-associated differences in raw performance times, the comparability of oral and written performances, as assessed by oral-to-written ratios, was consistent across age groups. These results suggest that the oral version of the Trail Making Test yields results consistent with an individual's written performance in normal subjects, regardless of age. Findings are discussed with regard to the potential clinical application of this measure as an alternative for specific populations, and as a useful way of interpreting written Trail Making performances.

Automatic versus intentional uses of memory: aging, attention, and control.

In 2 experiments, the authors used a process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991) to separately examine the effects of aging on automatic and consciously controlled memory processes. In Experiment 1, a group of young adults in either a full-attention or divided-attention condition were compared with a group of elderly adults on a fame judgment task. Both age and divided attention had a detrimental effect on consciously controlled memory processing but left automatic processing intact. In Experiment 2, the same age-related pattern was found using a more demanding forced-choice recognition paradigm.

Early effects of normal aging on perseverative and non‐perseverative prefrontal measures

Current neuropsychological research supports a model postulating that prefrontal functions are among the first to decline in normal aging, but this model has rarely been empirically tested with subjects of 65 years or less. This study tests the following hypotheses: (a) A significant decline occurs prior to age 65 in a wide ranging set of prefrontal performance measures and (b) a significant increase occurs on measures of perseveration based on the same prefrontal tasks. A group of young adults (n = 70) aged 20 to 35 and a group of elderly adults (n = 58) aged 45 to 65, group‐matched for education and sex, were evaluated by means of six neuropsychological prefrontal tasks: the Self‐Ordered Pointing Task, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Porteus Mazes, a Verbal Fluency Task, a Design Fluency Task, and the Stroop Test. Four of the six prefrontal scores and four of six measures of perseveration manifested significant declines in the elderly group, suggesting that normal aging prior to age 65 may exhibit measurable deterioration of prefrontal brain function: decreased ability to regulate behavior on the basis of plans, abstract concepts, environmental feedback, or one's own responses.

Life-span changes to adults' language: Effects of memory and genre

ABSTRACTThree different language samples were collected from a group of young adults, 18 to 28 years of age, and a group of elderly adults, 60 to 92 years of age: an oral questionnaire eliciting information about the adults' background, education, and current health and activities; an oral statement describing the person they most admired; and a written statement recounting the most significant event in their lives. In addition, the WAIS vocabulary and digit-span tests were administered to the adults. Age-related changes in the length, clause structure, and fluency of the adults' oral answers and oral and written statements were investigated. There was an overall decrement in the complexity of adults' oral and written statements attributable to an age-related loss of left-branching clauses which occurred in all three language samples. Correlations between the length, clause, and fluency measures from the language samples and the education, health, and WAIS vocabulary and digit-span tests revealed that better-educated adults scored higher on the WAIS vocabulary test, produced longer utterances, and used more right-branching clauses, and that adults with greater memory capacity, as measured by the WAIS Digits Backward test, produced more complex utterances and used more right- and left-branching clauses. Judges found the statements from the elderly adults to be more interesting and clearer than those from the young adults. This finding suggests that there is a trade-off between producing complex syntactic structures and producing clear and interesting prose.

Remembering mnemonics: a three-year follow-up on the effects of mnemonics training in elderly adults.

The purpose of this study was to assess the long-term impact of providing training in mnemonics to a small group of elderly adults. We wished to determine if such training could be utilized effectively some three years (34 months) after initial training. Nine of ten original subjects consented to take part in the retesting exercise. Ages ranged from 66 to 85 yrs (M = 73.5). Our results demonstrate that though loci generally were available for use in remembering a new word list, they usually were not effectively utilized to enhance recall. Our participants also agreed that the training they had received was useful. In spite of this, a majority of the respondents did not use the method of loci after training. However, adults of all ages often do not utilize mnemonics training once its effectiveness has been demonstrated. Therefore, creating effective cognitive interventions may require that we adopt techniques that have been shown to improve compliance in other areas of healthy living.

Subjective memory assessment and test performance in elderly adults.

The everyday memory of a group of elderly adults was assessed using techniques developed for use with younger head-injured people (Sunderland et al., 1983). The participants completed a memory questionnaire and a daily checklist; their spouses gave their assessment using a separate questionnaire. These subjective methods showed only moderate agreement, and the questionnaire had low test-retest reliability. It appears that these methods of subjective memory assessment have little validity when used with normal elderly adults. Two positive findings did emerge: As in previous studies, a story recall test was the strongest predictor of reported memory performance; and despite a universal belief among elderly adults that their memory had deteriorated with age, very few of them felt that they were at all handicapped by forgetfulness in everyday life.

Interactive imagery and affective judgments improve face-name learning in the elderly.

Groups of elderly adults were taught to learn name-to-face associations using one of three different techniques. In a control group (no image) participants were taught for each face-name pair to select a prominent facial feature and to transform the surname into a concrete word. Persons in a second group (image) additionally were taught to employ interactive imagery to form an association between the prominent feature and the transformed name. The third group (image + judgment) was treated the same as the second except that these individuals were also taught to judge the pleasantness of the image association that was formed. As predicted, improvement following instruction was minimal when no image association was formed but strong when interactive imagery was used. Moreover, those persons in the image + judgment group remembered more names than those in the image group and showed less forgetting on a measure of delayed recall. In addition to replicating and extending the findings of previous research with a different sample, the present study demonstrates that semantic orienting tasks can be used to enhance the retention of visual image associations as well as the simpler stimuli used in prior research.

MEANINGFULNESS, PRESENTATION RATE, LIST LENGTH, AND AGE IN ELDERLY ADULTS’ PAIRED‐ASSOCIATE LEARNING

Past research has suggested that elderly adults have considerable difficulty learning nonmeaningful material, and in fact, that the age‐related decline in adults’ learning and memory performance is more pronounced for nonmeaningful than for meaningful material. The present study examined the effects of varying meaningfulness of CVC response terms (low, medium, and high) in paired‐associate learning of 5‐ or 7‐item lists over 5 trials with both experimenter‐paced and self‐paced conditions. A 2X2X2X3X5 factorial design was used. The subjects were two groups of elderly adults, 61‐75 (M = 69.9) and 76‐92 (M = 84.4) years of age. For both age groups, self‐paced learning was significantly better than experimenter‐paced learning (p < .05), and significantly more correct anticipations were made for each increased level of meaningfulness (p < .001). Also, a significant interaction of meaningful‐ness and trials was found (p < .001) indicating that practice resulted in greater improvement in learning for the increas...

Optional shift behavior in children and young and elderly adults

Optional intradimensional and extradimensional shift behavior in preschool children, college-aged adults, and two groups of elderly adults was investigated in this study. The young adults made reliably more intradimensional shifts than did the children. This finding is in accord with the results of earlier studies in which optional reversal and nonreversal shift behavior has been investigated as a function of age. While the two elderly groups did not differ reliably in their shift behavior, the performance of the younger elderly Ss was comparable to that obtained for the college Ss, while the performance of the older elderly Ss was comparable to that obtained for the children.