AGE CONSTRUTS AND LIFE STYLE IN OLDER AGE. PART II. STARTING POINT OF SENILITY AND LIFE AT RIPE OLD AGE

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Shmerlina
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Starting Point

scholarly journals Understanding diversity in later life through images of old age

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friederike Enßle ◽  
Ilse Helbrecht
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Conceptual Debate ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Images Of Old Age

Abstract This article aims to enhance the conceptual debate on diversity in old age by exploring the interplay of diversity in later life and images of old age. We argue that the analysis of images of old age on the micro-level is a fruitful methodology in order to unravel the meaning of diversity in later life. Drawing on findings from qualitative research in Berlin, we explore how new and diverse imaginations, experiences and lifestyles of old age emerge. The conceptual focus on images of old age enables us to investigate further what diversity in later life comprises and how it simultaneously fosters the genesis of new images of old age. The manifold new images we found in our research suggest that prevalent societal discourses about old age on the macro-level are rather deceptive and represent mostly stereotypes such as ‘active agers’ or ‘frail and dependent elders’. We offer three explanations why alternative images of old age are currently barely present in public discourse: (a) the actors transmitting images of age; (b) the institutionalisation of the images; and (c) the challenge to communicate complexity. We conclude by suggesting that images of old age are a promising starting point to explore and make visible both the diversity of social groups within the older generation as well as the heterogeneity of older individuals.

Old Age and the Embrace of the Uncanny

2020 ◽  
pp. 279-320
Author(s):  
Melanie V. Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Older Age ◽  
The Uncanny

Contextualizing Wharton’s old-aged fiction within depictions of a destabilized old age, or a senescence of decline and imperilled personhood, this chapter compares Wharton’s writing to that of Vorse and Hall. In contrast with visions of a defamiliarized, uncanny aged self, Wharton’s work posits an older age filled with motivating desires and ambitions. This is also fiction that deploys gothic tropes to reveal how completely interaction with the aged tends to destabilize others, especially younger viewers, who see only age’s vagaries and unsteadiness, and who find it fearful.

Serum cholesterol and cognitive functions: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janie Corley ◽  
John M. Starr ◽  
Ian J. Deary
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Serum Cholesterol ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Verbal Ability ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Lothian Birth Cohort ◽  
Statin Use

ABSTRACTBackground:We examined the associations between serum cholesterol measures, statin use, and cognitive function measured in childhood and in old age. The possibility that lifelong (trait) cognitive ability accounts for any cross-sectional associations between cholesterol and cognitive performance in older age, seen in observational studies, has not been tested to date.Methods:Participants were 1,043 men and women from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study, most of whom had participated in a nationwide IQ-type test in childhood (Scottish Mental Survey of 1947), and were followed up at about age 70 years. Serum cholesterol measures included total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides, and cholesterol:HDL cholesterol ratio. Cognitive outcome measures were age 70 IQ (using the same test as at age 11 years), general cognitive ability (g), processing speed, memory, and verbal ability.Results:Higher TC, higher HDL-C, and lower triglycerides were associated with higher age 70 cognitive scores in most cognitive domains. These relationships were no longer significant after covarying for childhood IQ, with the exception a markedly attenuated association between TC and processing speed, and triglycerides and age 70 IQ. In the fully adjusted model, all conventionally significant (p < 0.05) effects were removed. Childhood IQ predicted statin use in old age. Statin users had lower g, processing speed, and verbal ability scores at age 70 years after covarying for childhood IQ, but significance was lost after adjusting for TC levels.Conclusions:These results suggest that serum cholesterol and cognitive function are associated in older age via the lifelong stable trait of intelligence. Potential mechanisms, including lifestyle factors, are discussed.

Changeability of Life-Style and Personality in Old Age

1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Kuypers
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Life Style

scholarly journals Increasingly capable at the ripe old age? Cognitive abilities from 2004 to 2013 in Germany, Spain, and Sweden

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0254038
Author(s):  
Julia Grasshoff ◽  
Johannes Beller ◽  
Beatrice G. Kuhlmann ◽  
Siegfried Geyer
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Cohort Effects ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Life Years ◽  
Starting Point

Background Life expectancy is increasing in most high-income countries, but gains in life years are maximized if spent in good health and if cognitive abilities are maintained until old age. Age-related decline of cognitive abilities does nevertheless occur, but the pace of decline is decisive. This was the starting point for our study that aims to examine cohort effects of cognitive aging in women and men in Germany, Spain and Sweden by analyzing changes from 2004 to 2013 by estimating cohort effects within age groups starting from the age of 50 years. Methods A cohort study was conducted that was based on data of the surveys 2004 (N = 6,081) and 2013 (N = 8,650) from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The analyses were based on data of female and male respondents aged 50 years and older. Age-specific means of verbal fluency and delayed recall from the German, Spanish and Swedish samples were the cognitive domains considered in the study. Results In both domains of cognitive ability the achievements in the later surveys were higher than in the earlier ones. This was found in all countries, abut achievement levels increased markedly in the German and the Spanish samples, while the scores of the Swedish samples were not significantly different. While the highest scores were found for Sweden, Germany ranked in the middle and the lowest scores were found in the Spanish samples. Over time, the scores of the German samples approached those of Sweden. Conclusions From the first to the second survey, improvements of older adults’ cognitive abilities were found for all countries considered. This may indicate improvements of the underlying educational systems, but also increasingly stimulating general living conditions.

scholarly journals Physical activity and aging

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 88-92
Author(s):  
T. D. Noakes
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Exercise Training ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Great Benefit ◽  
Regular Exercise ◽  
Physiological And Biochemical

The effects of exercise on aging are discussed under 4 headings viz. whether there is evidence that exercise might delay aging, the physiological and biochemical factors that alter with age, how exercise training influences these factors and ends with advice on how to start exercising at an older age. The author concludes that regular exercise is of great benefit to preserve physical well-being into old age.

Platon o starości i ludziach starych

Vox Patrum ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 73-104
Author(s):  
Anna Z. Zmorzanka
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Aged People ◽  
Ideal State

The article presents Plato’s views on topic of the old age and aged people. There were talked the following topics over: (1) Plato’s terminology of the old age on the background of vocabulary arisen to first half of fourth age; (2) periodization of older age presented in Laws; (3) theory on topic of the aging presented in Timaeus; (4) how mean should lives through his own old age – for example the old man Cephalus; (5) view on topic of the elderly’s role in society; (6) laws of the elderly and project of social care in vision of ideal state. There was said in conclusion, that Plato was only one ancient author, who extensi­vely appeared the problems of old age as well, but philosophical anthropology was that things, which joined different voices in cohesive theory.

scholarly journals Biology as destiny? Rethinking embodiment in ‘deep’ old age

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 1279-1291 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN PICKARD
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
Social Body ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cultural Determinants

ABSTRACTDespite sociological understanding that bodies are social and morphological, material and discursive, there is a persistent, prevailing tendency within sociology to approach the old body – particularly in ‘deep old age’ – as non-social. No longer amenable either to reflexive (consumerist) choice, or expressive of the self, it is viewed rather through a biomedical explanatory framework in which it is held to succumb to ‘natural’ physiological processes of decline that lie outside culture. This paper critically questions such assumptions which it links to sociology's acquiescing in modernity's age ideology rather than taking it as a starting point for critique. This means that sociology's sensitivity towards ageing is displayed not in challenging models of the older body but in diverting attention away from the body altogether and focusing on structural and cultural determinants which are not considered to encompass physiology. Arguing, however, that biology and society do not exist on separate plains, and that the body in deep old age is, like other bodies, first and foremost a social body, the paper draws upon feminist methodology and epistemology for the purpose of dismantling such essentialism. It suggests that the sociological imagination will benefit from the eradication of age ideology through a clearer understanding not just of ageing but of embodiment at all stages of the lifecourse.

Midlife Influences Upon Intellectual Functioning in Old Age

1984 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Warner Schaie
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Life Style ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Predictor Variables ◽  
Family Dissolution ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Seattle Longitudinal Study

Evidence is presented from the Seattle Longitudinal Study to show that cognitive style and other life style variables in midlife can predict part of the individual differences in pattern and rate of ability decline in old age. Differential importance of certain predictor variables are examined as a function of the extent of actul ability decline at various ages. During early middle age attitudinal flexibility maintains high level of function on the fluid abilities and on motor-cognitive flexibility. High performance on the latter variables at midlife as well as an engaged life style and the absence of family dissolution appear to be critical for the maintenance of high levels of ability performance from middle into old age.

Age-related loss of resources and perceived old age in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Huijun Liu ◽  
Ru Yang ◽  
Zhixin Feng
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Health Resources ◽  
Health Condition ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Role Transition ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Life expectancy in China has increased. This paper explores the age when older adults (aged 60 and above) consider themselves to be an ‘older person’ and how age-related loss of resources (five dimensions: early cumulative factors, decline and loss of health resources, reduction and loss of economic resources, weakening and loss of social support resources, and personal role transition and experiences of losing family members) could impact their perceived old age. Using two waves of data from the China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey (CLASS) in 2014 and 2016 (6,244 participants in 2014 and 2,989 participants in both 2014 and 2016), we found that the mean perceived old age is around 70 years at baseline (2014). Higher level of educational attainment and occupational types (early cumulative factors), better health condition, receiving support from friends and taking care of grandchildren are significantly associated with the perception that old age begins at an older age at baseline, while being Han-Chinese, being an urban resident (early cumulative factors) and reporting better health condition have significant positive effects on the perception that old age begins at an older age in the later wave. Our findings suggest that the age standard of older adults should be adjusted dynamically in response to social development and longevity, and also highlight the importance of early cumulative factors in shaping the ageing process besides age-related factors.

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