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What a crock!

Greg
48/35/35
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marjorie L. Moorefield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2000 10:08 AM
Subject: Memory


> I just love the way they think we older adults should write things
> down---that's great advice if you can remember where you put the
> list after you wrote it down!!!
> just me,
> Marjorie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Absent-minded as you age?  It's not just you
> BY ROBERT S. BOYD
> Herald Washington Bureau
>     Older adults have a rich base of
> information and a wealth of experience
> that may provide a buffer against the
>   effects of processing declines.' DENISE PARK, University of Michigan in
> Ann Arbor
> 
> WASHINGTON :
> We've all heard folks lament as they age,
> "I'm not as sharp as I used to be.... I can't think as fast ....
> I don't remember things as well."
> Now, in a series of striking experiments, scientists have
> demonstrated that certain mental powers decline in almost
> a straight line from our 20s to our 70s.
> The slowdown doesn't wait till we reach senior status.
>          "Across their life span, people get slower, said Denise Park,
>   an expert on the psychological problems of the elderly at the
>   University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "The decline from 20 to 30
> is the same as from 60 to 70. There's nothing magical about
> turning 60 you don't suddenly fall off a cliff."
> Experiments in laboratories around the world show a
> steady deterioration in two key mental tools, the speed
> with which people process information and their ability to
>   remember things in the short run.
> The decline happens to everybody  rich or poor, male or female,
>   college grad or not according to German psychologist Paul Baltes,
>   director of the Center for Lifespan Psychology in Berlin.
> "Being highly educated, affluent or of high cognitive
> 
> ability does not protect an individual from agerelated decline,"
> Baltes reported after completing a study of aging Berliners.
> A similar study by Richard Nisbett, a University of Michigan
>   social psychologist, found that Chinese lose their mental
> agility at the same pace as Americans.
> That's the bad news about growing old. The good news, researchers
> say, is that people build up a store of knowledge and practical
> wisdom that partially compensate for the loss of memory and
>   mental quickness.
> "Older adults have a rich base of information and a wealth of
> experience that may provide a buffer against the effects
> of processing declines," Park said.
> "With age come growth and experience, which can be useful in
> solving complex moral and social problems," Baltes said.
> Consequently, the researchers say people are at their peak
> capacity in their 40s and 50s, before the relentless slowdown in
> brainpower overcomes the benefits of maturity.
> 
>          In middle age, you're a little slower, but you know more," Park
> observed.
> "But at some point, you really don't have enough" mental capacity to function
> effectively, such as remembering to take your medicines.
> 
>          Timothy Salthouse, a psychology professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta,
> compared the elderly mind to an outdated computer.
> "It's almost as if older adults are to young adults as the computers of five
> to 10 years ago are to current computers," said Salthouse,
> who has studied the aging process for decades.
> Although human brainpower diminishes at a steady pace, the loss
> seems greater in later years because so much of the pool of
>   mental resources is depleted.
>          Park used the analogy of a person who starts out with $1,000 in
> the bank,
> earning no interest. Each decade, starting at age 20, she withdraws $100.
>   At age 30, she has lost 10 percent of her resources. By age 70, she has
> $500 left,
> and a $100 withdrawal reduces her now eager account by 20 percent.
> "The proportionate loss of the 69 year old is greater than for the 29 year old,
> given that a 20 year old has more processing resources left than a 6- year old,
> Park observed.
> These insights into tie shrinking reserves of mental energy come from
> experiments with people of all ages in various laboratories in the United
> States and Europe.
> 
> STEPS FOR COPING ;
> Given the inevitability ,of this decline, Park recommends that instructions
>   for older people  such as taking medicine or finding the way. to a new
> restaurant
>   be written down rather than left to their memories. '
> "It is always best to design instructions and other information for older
> adults
> so that the memory load is as low as possible," she said. "Teach older adults
> to write down information that they might be likely, to forget."
>