Ageing causes changes to the brain size, vasculature, and cognition, according to medical literature. The brain shrinks with increasing age and there are changes at all levels from molecules to morphology. Incidence of stroke, white matter lesions, and dementia also rise with age, and there are changes in levels of neurotransmitters and hormones. 

Physical changes are found that the volume of the brain and/or its weight declines with age at a rate of around 5% per decade after age 40 with the actual rate of decline possibly increasing with age particularly over age 70. The most widely seen cognitive change associated with ageing is memory impairment. ​

Age-related changes in how the brain manages memory, thinking, and other mental processes are called “cognitive aging”, which is NOT because of disease or damage nor involve neurodegeneration or significant damage to the brain’s neurons. The normal and expected cognitive aging, from medical literature and clinical findings, are briefly reviewed here.  Understanding how aging changes cognition will benefit us to know what to anticipate for healthy aging.

Memory

Memory loss is a chief aging complaint. Memory is a broad category covering the ability to retain and retrieve information. Types of memory that decline with aging are working memory, episodic memory (especially for more recent events), and prospective memory. Types of memory that tend to be more stable are procedural memory and semantic long-term memory (may decline after the seventh decade).

Working memory is the ability to temporarily hold information in mind and processing it mentally. Working memory is task related and involved in encoding, storing, and retrieving data for problem-solving, decision – making, and language processing. Declines in working memory mean that older adults may take longer or have more difficulty solving complex problems or weighing complicated decisions.

Episodic memory refers to one’s memory for personally experienced events that have happened at a particular place or time. Declines in episodic memory may cause older adults to be more forgetful, especially for recent events.

Prospective memory is the ability to remember future events and planning. A decline in prospective memory may require reminders for planned activities as needed. Calendar is a useful tool. 

Semantic long-term memory is a long-term memory that involves the recollection of ideas, concepts and facts commonly regarded as general knowledge, which acquired over time. Older adults are generally good at retaining information and memories that they’ve previously acquired, but may take longer to retrieve them.

Procedural memory is also known as skill learning and remembering how to do certain activities. It usually requires time and practice to build up. The ability to perform well-learned procedures (e.g. typing) remains stable, but older adults often need more time and practice to learn a new procedure and create the procedural memory.

To aging concern, what’s normal memory decline and what’s not?  Able (or unable) to manage daily life tasks should be an important indication.  For older adults, maintain a daily routine at a comfortable slower pace is normal. Take more time as needed to encode into and retrieve from memories, not to rush the processing time, is a good rule to follow.

Attention

Attention is the ability to concentrate and focus on something specific, so that the related information can be processed.

Selective attention is the ability to focus on something specific despite the presence of other distracting and “irrelevant” information or stimuli, such as spotting the relevant information on a cluttered website, and following a conversation despite background noise. Selective attention gets worse with aging. As people get older, they are more easily distracted by noise, visual clutter, or a busy situation. It requires more effort for them to pay attention, especially when other things are going on.

Divided attention, also known as “multi-tasking,” is the ability to manage multiple tasks or streams of information at the same time. Examples: cooking while listening to news, walking while talking on the phone. People will also get worse at multi-tasking or switching between tasks, as getting older.

Sustained attention is the ability to remain concentrated on something for an extended period of time. Sustained attention shows improvements with maturation in early adulthood but then does not change with aging in older adults, accordingly. 

Language Skills

Language skills cover a variety of abilities related to understanding and producing in both verbal and written language. Vocabulary and the comprehension of written language tend to remain stable with aging. Older adults normally retain learned vocabulary and comprehension ability for written language.

Speech comprehension may decline with age, however, especially if the older person has any hearing difficulties or if the speech is rapid or distorted (because such speech requires more mental processing). Language production also decline with age; as retrieving words often takes longer, more time is needed to find a word and it becomes more common to pause in the middle of a sentence. Spelling familiar words may become more difficult. The ability to name a common object tends to decline after age 70. They may struggle with understanding rapid speech or distorted speech (such as that broadcast by a loudspeaker or synthetic voice).

Executive Functioning

This refers to the mental skills that are needed for activities related to planning, organizing, problem-solving, abstract thinking, mental flexibility, and appropriate behavior. Executive function involves -

  • Solve new problems
  • Organize information and plan activities
  • Think abstractly
  • Reasoning (especially when it comes to reasoning with unfamiliar material)
  • Adapt to new situations
  • Behave socially appropriate
  • Make complex decisions

Executive function generally declines with age, especially after age 70. Normal older adults generally can perform the executive functioning tasks but may not as easily as at a younger age. Older adults may struggle or take more time for demanding executive functioning tasks, more so when overwhelmed.

Processing speed

Processing speed is how quickly one can manage a mental task. Processing speed decreases with age, therefore older adults need more time to take in information and to formulate an appropriate response, compared to their younger selves. Some older adults may struggle with complex tasks requiring fast information processing, which can be frustrating. Driving safety, in particular, may be affected by slower processing, because driving requires the brain to be highly vigilant and coordinate reactions quickly.

Crystallized versus fluid intelligence in aging

Crystallized intelligence might refer to as “wisdom”, for everything one has learned over time: skills, abilities, knowledge. This increases as people get older, because crystallized intelligence is a function of experience, practice, and familiarity. Crystallized intelligence gets better or stays stable as people get older. This experience and wisdom does enable older adults to compensate for some of the decline in processing speed and other ability.

Fluid intelligence refers to abilities related to processing power, taking in new information, problem-solving with new or less familiar information, and reacting quickly. Fluid intelligence is at its peak at younger adulthood and then declines over time. Older people tend to rely less on fluid intelligence and deliberative capacity and more on intuition, rules of thumb and shortcuts - things learned through experience and which can actually lead to equally effective decision making in areas they are familiar with.

In addition, older people are more affected by choice overload: The older we get the more difficult we tend to find it to navigate a proliferation of choice. Older people tend to prefer simple choices with minimal options and information that is succinct and pretty straightforward. 

Emotional Processing

Research in emotional aging suggests that most older adults enjoy high levels of affective well-being and emotional stability into their 70s and 80s. Only when people are essentially dying does “terminal” drop in affective well-being appear consistently and is largely independent of age. 

As emotions are central to daily functioning, it is important to understand how aging affects perception, memory, experience, as well as regulation of emotions. Research studied how the aging brain dealing with negative emotions, such as
  • How quickly one moves out of a negative emotional state
  • How physically or emotionally reacting to interpersonal stressors
  • Mental strategies for minimizing negative stimuli

Findings suggest that older adults experience several changes that generally make them more positive and optimistic. These include, but not limit to -
Practically speaking, people tend to get happier and recover from negative emotions more quickly as they age. Normal older adults develop a positivity bias and tend to engage in situations that are emotionally positive, but avoid problems that generate negative emotions or deny certain issues that they find unpleasant.

Be aware of the fact that up to 80% of scam victims are over 65, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Some experts suspect that older people are more vulnerable to fraud because they are more trusting than younger adults. 

Misplaced trust can have dire consequences, especially when it comes to financial fraud. Older adults seem to be particularly vulnerable to interpersonal solicitations, and their reduced sensitivity to cues related to trust may partially underlie this vulnerability.

Practical Takeaways

Cognitive aging means that as people getting older, the mental functions become less flexible with memories getting worse. Aging brain also becomes more easily distracted by busy environments, and it takes more effort to work through complex problems, choices, and decisions.

Aging tends to make people more positive, optimistic, trusting, emotionally resilient, and focused on good things. This often helps people feel happier as they get older. But these changes may also make older adults more susceptible to deception and financial exploitation.

Aging is inevitable, but quality of life is not age limiting. Cognitive health requires self-care actions for maintenance. To learn about physical changes of aging body, go to The Milestone of Age 65. Don’t blame your age. Healthy mindset and life style has a direct impact on your mind and body. 

Taking actions today to enhance cognitive health:

Take self-care actions to optimize and maintain your brain function
  • Believe in yourself – when you believe you can improve and you translate that belief into practice, you have a better chance of keeping your mind sharp.
  • Learn a new skill and engage in continued learning - Trying new activities may be a great way to challenge your brain to make new brain connections.
  • Use all your senses to reinforce stimulation – i.e., practice piano or any musical instrument will involve the brain, vision, hearing, arms/hands, legs/feet, and coordination. To learn more, go to Music learning and Practice Benefits for older adults 
  • Regular exercise, balanced diet, and quality sleep sleep well are the golden rules to follow for a daily routine 
  • Prevent or control high blood pressure and high blood sugar 
  • Do not smoking or drinking alcohol
Take sensible steps and precautions to compensate for cognitive aging changes
  • Plan tasks, make to-do lists, and use memory tools such as calendars and notes
  • Put your wallet or purse, keys, phone, and glasses in the same place each day
  • For quick and easy "to do" items, get it done before it slips off the mind. Don't procrastinate. 
  • Repeat what you want to remember - for something you've just heard, read, or thought about, repeat it out loud or write it down to reinforce the memory or connection.
  • Allow more time to think through complicated decisions with trusted resources will prevent frustrations or impaired judgements 
  • Writing down key points to consider, as this reduces mental working memory load
  • Avoid noisy and busy environments and resist pushes for mentally demanding activities
  • Simplify finances and take steps to reduce the risk of financial exploitation in later life
  • Consider making an effort to deal with big complicated mental tasks (e.g. estate planning, advance care planning) sooner rather than later
Optimize emotional regulations from emotional intelligence skills training
  • Emotion affects perceptions and plays an important role in the process of solving everyday problems. Understand that become more emotional often correlates with aging.
  • Acknowledge your emotions without judgments (good or bad/right of wrong) for self-awareness.  Notice your own reactions in a neutral way. 
  • it’s essential to be emotionally literate. Train your sense to feel emotions in your body and to be able to recognize it. Notice the buildup before the trigger and recognize recurring patterns to prevent low EQ moments become habits.
  • Focus on attention toward a specific goal and choose the course of action, avoid making decisions emotionally, especially financial (donations, investments, purchases) decisions.
  • Develop emotional regulation through cognitive reconstruction and be able to effectively manage emotions as well as express them in an acceptable manner in social interactions.

Learning and understanding your aging brain will benefit your self-care. Feel free to contact QualityLifeForum@outlook.com for personal support. An individualized coaching program can help you achieving your personal health goals.

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References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596698/
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/memory-forgetfulness-and-aging-whats-normal-and-whats-not
https://betterhealthwhileaging.net/how-brain-function-changes-with-normal-cognitive-aging/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20677878/
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2013/01/trust-rises-age
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/memory-forgetfulness-and-aging-whats-normal-and-whats-not
https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/three-behavioral-insights-into-the-ageing-mind/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/6-simple-steps-to-keep-your-mind-sharp-at-any-age
https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/65B/2/135/642926
https://www.6seconds.org/2018/02/27/emotional-intelligence-tips-awareness/
https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-intelligence-training/

​Disclaimer: This information is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Consult your healthcare professional for personal conditions.

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