This presentation gives an overview about the aging concept in the context of cognition. It highlights the normal changes in cognition with aging.

1. Aging concept and cognitive
aging
Dr Ravi Soni
Senior Resident
DGMH, KGMU
LUCKNOW

2. Aging Concept
• Aging is a pattern of life changes that occurs as
one grows older.
• Gerontology is the study of individual and
collective aging processes
– Biological age
– Psychological age
– Social age
– Legal age
– Functional age

3. Normal Aging
 Who is old?
• Biological and psychological aging changes usually occur
gradually, over years or decades, and as a result, there is no
single age at which people in general can be said to be old.
• Commonly people older than 65 are called ‘OLD’
• Gerontologists often draw finer chronological demarcations:
• Young-old: 65-74
• Old-old: 75-84
• Oldest-old: >85

4. What is cognition?
• Cognition is the set of all mental abilities and
processes related to knowledge: attention, memory
and working memory, judgment and evaluation,
reasoning, problem solving, decision making,
comprehension and production of language.
• These processes are not independent of one another
– E.g. attention may be part of perception; language may be
part of memory and decision-making, etc.

5. Cognitive Abilities in Later Life: A Processing
Resource Model
• On an average aging is accompanied by decline in three fundamental
cognitive-processing resources:
1. Processing Speed: reduced speed of information processing and
response- most predictable
2. Working Memory: refers to short-term retention and manipulation of
information held in conscious memory, a type of “online” cognitive
processing. exa. Examples include consciously recalling a telephone number
long enough to write it down
3. Sensory and Perceptual changes: decrements in visual and auditory
acuity and other perceptual changes.

6. Park et al. 2002

7. Explanations of Cognitive Aging
Changes
• Neuropathological and neuroimaging studies: changes in brain with
aging
• Generalized atrophic and white matter changes as well as region-
specific variations in the extent of cell loss
• Affected areas: Within the cortex, the prefrontal lobes are
disproportionately affected, Hippocampus and entorhinal cortex
are affected but data are conflictual
• Subcortical monoaminergic cell populations, are also subject to
prominent decline in aging
• Spared areas: Temporo-parietal association areas
• Areas in which there is relative sparing with age: the globus
pallidus, the paleocerebellum, the sensory cortices, and the pons

8. General Aging Trends

9. General Aging Trends

10. Factors That Influence Cognitive Aging

11. Stay Active…..

12. THE END
“healthy children will not fear life if their
elders have integrity enough not to fear
death.”