Cognitive impairment is one among the major health issues concerning the increasingly aged population around the world. That is, the decline in cognitive function is the most dreaded part of growing old, as it impacts the financial, personal and social life of the members of the aging population. There are numerous research that demonstrated the increasing loss of gray matter with aging. This is in addition to studies revealing that aging generally leads to the alteration of the brain structure, which are intimately linked to cognition. While there are instances when older individuals outperform younger people in terms of cognitive tasks, researchers found that advancement in years can significantly weaken attention and memory.
Research indicated that there are mental functions and capabilities that remain the same and are properly maintained even with aging. However, declines in mental domains such as processing speed, reasoning, memory and executive functions, are inevitable as an individual ages. The reason for this phenomena can be attributed to the “decline in a general cognitive factor” (Deary et al, 2009). Accordingly, the rate of cognitive decline is affected by several elements such as genetic factors, health status, lifestyle habits and biological processes.
A noted phenomena in the process of aging is that the decline of one mental domain, almost always leads to the declines of other cognitive elements. Further, a reduced speed in the processing of information tends to account for a significant percentage of age-related decline in cognition. Generally, people may not be conscious about its occurrence, but the gradual decline starts when an individual is already in her 30s. For people who meet the criteria, and can be identified within the realm of ‘normal cognitive ageing’, it was found that they differ greatly in the degree to which their brains decline with age (Deary et al, 2009).
There are identifying risk factors, mechanisms and individual differences that determine the
in age-associated cognitive decline, and understanding them pose to be one among the challenges in improving the lives of the older population. As pointed out, aging and cognitive decline serve as a personal, social, and health liability, despite the realization that its decline with the advancing of age is usually considered as an unavoidable impact of normal aging. There are many studies indicating that the decline in gray matter increase with the advancement of years, and this is true among the aging population around the world.
One of the cognitive function that is greatly affected with aging is the attention processing. Declines in attention have a wide-ranging impact, specifically in the ability of an individual to function sufficiently and efficiently. It was found that the older population tends to show a deficit in this area, when compared to the younger population, and researchers attributed this to the slowed information processing with aging. The members of the older population demonstrated a reduced ability in doing tasks that demands a flexible control of attention.
There is also the decline in memory, and it was found that aging is one among the dominating factor that affects an individual’s ability to recall. It was argued that the majority of older adults showed the ability to recall general information, but they tend to have a reduced ability in terms of remembering detailed information. Specifically, older adults have difficulty in remembering the source of information, such as the when and where of events. There are also instances when older people show confusion as to whether an event happened for real, or was just a thought out.
References
Deary, I., Corley, J., Gow, A., Harris, S., Houlihan, L., Marioni, R., & Penke, L. (2009). Age-associated cognitive decline. British Medical Bulletin, 92, 135-152.
Grieve, S., Williams, L., Paul, R., Clark, C., & Gordon, E. (2007). Cognitive aging, executive function, and fractional anisotropy: A diffusion tensor MR imaging study. American Journal of Neuroradiology. Retrieved from http://www.ajnr.org/content/28/2/226.full
