Memory Retention and Retrieval in Aging Adults - Term Paper Example

 Memory retention and retrieval in aging adults While it is well-established that memory performance declines in older adults, it is now clear that not all aspects of memory are impaired. Dissociations across age groups with respect to impairments in different memory types/processes have provided (a) insights into the influence of aging on neuropsychological underpinnings of memory, and (b) leverage for memory theorists to develop a better understanding of normal memory functioning (Balota et al, n. d, p.2) Memory is one of the major psychological parameter which helps a person to lead a normal life. Any defects caused to the memory may adversely affect the normal life of a person. Aging is a process which affects all the physical and mental parameters of a person. Aging can affect both long term and short term memories of a person. Long term memories can act like the hard disk of a computer whereas short term memories can function like the Random Access Memory (RAM) of a computer. When the computer switches off all the information in the RAM will be lost whereas the information stored in the hard disk will be saved for future use. In the case of old people, both long term and short term memories can be exhausted if proper precautions are not taken. Long term memory consolidation occurs in human brain with the help of complex interactions among multiple brain systems like neurohormones. In the case of old people, these interactions among brain systems will be exhausted along with the exhausting of the body. Same way, short term memories may disappear once an old person completes a sleep cycle. Memory retention is essential for old people to conduct a normal life. Loss of memory may prevent them from identifying the objects or forgetting about their daily routine works. Thus their life becomes miserable when they approach their end of life period. Medical science has developed a lot and it is possible to reduce the pace of memory exhaustion among old people. In some cases, it is possible to regain the lost memory of the old people. This paper reviews the literature with respect to memory retention and retrieval among old people. Memory loss among old people There are many theories and views about the beginning of memory decline. Many people are of the view that memory mays started to decline from the age of sixty onwards. On the other hand many other are of the view that memory declining starts as early as thirty years of age itself. These contrasting views are the result of unawareness about the memory systems. Craik (2008) has succeeded in explaining these contrasting views with the help of the architecture and functioning of memory. He has explained that every human has at least five major memory systems and these systems show very distant rate of declining in the course of aging. “Episodic memory (memory for specific events) and working memory exhaust rapidly whereas memory for perceptual information, for highly practiced habits and procedures and for general knowledge (semantic memory) hold up relatively well”(Craik, 2008, p.343). In other words, some memory systems start to exhaust even in the early ages of thirties or forties whereas other memory systems exhaust only at a later period. People will take episodic memory loss and working memory loss as natural and less seriously than other types of memory loss and that is why these memory losses are often not catching the attention of people. Older people have relatively less abilities in keeping specific information in the memory compared to the younger generation. However, most of them are capable of retrieving general information. This is purely because of the dependency of various memory systems to age for the active functioning. Cognitive abilities such as attention, executive control, learning and problem solving etc can exhaust in the course of normal and pathological aging”. This is because of the growing inefficiency of the neurophysiological systems, blood supply, neural connectivity, dopamine depletion, poor glucose metabolism and so forth (Craik, 2008, p.343). Because of the exhausting of body organs, body cannot function normally when a person approaches his end of life. For example, heart may loss its normal blood pumping capacity which may result in brain getting less amount of blood. When the blood circulation is improper, brain systems may not work properly. Neurotransmitters which are responsible for sending and receiving information to different parts of body may not function properly when the blood circulation is exhausted. Poor glucose metabolism often results in diseases like diabetes among older people. Type 2 diabetics are a disease which occurred when the body resists the effects of insulin produces less insulin than required to maintain the glucose level. Glucose is the major fuel which drives the body. The increased need for insulin and the decreased ability of the body to produce it finally will affect the abilities of pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin deficiency affects the brain systems which may lead towards improper brain functioning and subsequent memory losses. Older adults tend to process incoming information in a shallower fashion, owing to the reduction in available processing resources. Such shallower processing can be regarded as poorer integration of the events with respect to the existing knowledge, resulting in an age related binding or associative deficit (Luo and Craik, 2008, p.349). Information processing abilities of the older generation are much lower than that of the younger generation. Older generation often tend to arrive at wrong conclusions as result of the malfunctioning of their information processing systems and the memories. They may not think deeply before making conclusions. Surface level knowledge is often processed by the older generation while ignoring the other dimensions of the knowledge. Einstein & McDaniel, (1990) have pointed out the involvement of prospective memory task in the memory declining process among old people. It is possible that the elderly, relative to the young, saw the prospective memory task as more important. This possibility is inconsistent with the monitoring results, which showed equivalent, and in some cases lower, monitoring levels for the elderly relative to the young (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990, p.724) Prospective memory is a type of memory, in which one would remember to perform a particular action in the future. “Researchers have distinguished between prospective tasks that are time-based (taking medicine every 8 hours) and those that are event-based (relaying a message to a friend next time you see her”(Balota et al, n. d, p.7-8). Time based tasks are more complicated to retrieve to the old people compared to the event based tasks. This is because of the fact that event based tasks will strengthen the memory more than the time based tasks. In other words, event based tasks will remain in the active memory of the old people more strongly than the time based tasks because of the differences in the mechanisms of reinforcement of information related to time based tasks and event based tasks. Another important parameter which affect the memory retention of old people is the functioning of senses. Since we use, all our senses to collect information from our surroundings, it is important to keep the functioning of senses intact for strengthening the memory retention process. “Sensory memory systems hold information in a relatively raw (uninterpreted) format for brief periods of time. The research addressing sensory memory in young and older adults indicates that there is relatively little age-related change in these systems” (Balota et al, n. d, p.3). However, it is quite possible that the functioning of senses like eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue of the older generation may generate some defects as time passes. These defects can create problems to older generation in sensing things properly just like the younger generation. Another reason for the defective memory capacity of the older generation is the defective functioning of primary memory. “Primary memory is reflected in our ability to maintain small amounts of information in immediate awareness for a short period of time” (Balota et al, n. d, p.4). Whatever the things we hear, see or feel will be stored in our primary memory first. It may not go deep into the secondary memory if the information is unimportant. Old people quite often take things lightly compared to the younger generation. The serious things according to the perspectives of younger generation could be a silly thing for the older generation. For example, a minor accident may not cause much worries to the older people because of their vast life experiences. On the other hand, even a small accident may create lot of psychological problems among youths because of their inability to take it lightly. In short, the functioning of primary memory is different among youths and older generation and that is why older generation. Gaesser et al (2011), have pointed out that “When remembering past events or imagining possible future events, older adults generate fewer episodic details than do younger adults” (Gaesser et al, 2011, p.80). In other words, the imaginative power of the younger generation is stronger than that of the elder generation. Youths often see dreams while they sleep. This is because of the hyper activity of their imaginative power. The thoughts of a youth and that of an older person could be entirely different even if they watched the same movie. The youth often try to visualize himself in the place of the hero or heroine whereas the old person may not think about such comparisons. This is because of the greater imaginative power of the youths compared to that of the old people. Since youths try to watch every activity performed by the hero or heroine as his/her own activity, he/she may develop deeper understanding about the themes of that film. On the other hand, older generation may not bother much to think deeply about the activities of the hero or heroine. For them it is just a story and it has nothing to do with the real life. In short, better imaginative power provides youths better remembrance compared to the older generation. Research on experimental animals has generated data to support a neural basis for the processing speed hypothesis. It has revealed that age-related cognitive decline in non-human primates is not due to loss of significant numbers of neurons, but rather is associated with axonal myelin integrity, thus providing anatomical evidence suggestive of diminished information transfer in the aging brain (Zanto et al, 2009, p.13) Dulas et al (2011) also expressed similar opinions. They argued that “Various studies have shown that normal aging may adversely affect source memory accuracy for various associations. Moreover, less efficient retrieval processing may contribute to these impairments” (Dulas et al 2011, p.84). Earlier, many people believed that the memory loss among old people is due to the malfunctioning of brain systems or neurons. However, it is currently proved that even among old people who have better physical and mental health, memory loss occurs. In other words, it is not necessary that the physical problems alone may cause memory loss among aged people. In fact the information processing methods are causing problems among old people as far as memory loss is concerned. Maguire & Frith (2003) have mentioned that “Memory decline in the elderly has also been attributed to cognitive factors such as a reduction in processing speed and attentional resources”. In their opinion, “the most parsimonious explanation for the recruitment of the right hippocampus during autobiographical memory retrieval in older adults relates to the use of its spatial processing or reserve capacity” (Maguire & Frith, 2003, p.1521). Old age is a period during which functioning of the entire body organs started to decline. Our mind is the driving force of our body. End of life period or old age is a period during which the positive thoughts or positive energy started to exhaust and negative thoughts or negative energy started to dominate. The dominance of negative energy over positive energy forces an old person to slow down his normal body activities and information processing abilities. It is difficult for an old person to focus on a particular thing for a longer period. They are more concerned with the life after death rather than the life on earth during their old age. No science or technologies so far succeeded in unveiling the mysteries surrounding life after death. The uncertainly about the life after death and the realization that their life in this earth is going cease, will prevent old people from concentrating more on a particular task. Lack of interest in activities, may slow down all the physical and mental processes and subsequently the memory loss may started to creep in. Multitasking negatively influences the retention of information over brief periods of time. This impact of interference on working memory is exacerbated with normal aging. Younger and older adults engaged in delayed recognition tasks both with and without interruption by a secondary task. Behavioral analysis revealed that working memory performance was more impaired by interruptions in older compared with younger adults (Clapp et al, 2010, p.1) The commitments of current generation are extremely high. An adult of current era has lot of responsibilities in his family, workplace and in society. Such over responsibilities often force him to do many things (Multitasking) at a time. Even though multitasking is easier to the younger generation, it is not so to the old people. Old people often like to lead a calm and quite life when thy approaches their end of life situations. They are keener in relieving from all types of responsibilities during this period. In short, the working memory of youths and old people function differently because of their different perceptions about life. Youths always like to take risks and they often engage in many things at a time. For example, many of the current computer professionals chat with their friends even when they work in their offices. They will do their professional jobs and socializing jobs at the same time. It is impossible for old people to perform their activities in this manner because of their inferior abilities in information processing and multitasking. Over a broad spectrum of circumstances, normal aging, and conditions of accelerated aging, e.g. dementia and in particular Alzheimers disease (AD), are associated with incremental brain pathologies and an array of functional deficits, such as learning, memory, executive functioning, motivation, affective resilience (or affective liability) and motor behavior, that contribute to the extent and depth of the debilities observed in elderly individuals (Archer, 2010, p. 221) It is not necessary that a particular reason alone may cause memory loss among elderly people. In many cases, a combination of more than one reasons result in memory failures among old people. Some of the reasons could be physical whereas others could be psychological. For example, the physical activity or the motor behavior among the adults will be lesser compared to that among youths. The inability to move quickly just like the teenagers, may often create bad feelings in the minds of the older generation. The motivation to sustain life may be damaged among old people because of their inability to act just like the teenagers. In short, the combination of physical inactivity and lack of motivation create bad feelings or negative thoughts among old people which may affect the memory drastically. Memory Retention among old people Memory retention techniques are difficult to implement among aged people because of the complexities involved in such mechanisms. Various cognitive techniques are used to retain or regain memory among older generation. However, “the best chances of success still lie with the common sense approaches of enhancing cognitive reserves and maximizing the contextual support provided by the patient’s living environment” (Craik, 2008, p.345). Even when considering cued recall, it is not the case that elderly adults are always at a disadvantage relative to younger adults. Older adults are certainly capable of encoding semantic, meaningful information. In fact, general semantic features appear to be encoded relatively automatically. When this information is used to cue recall either no age deficit, or a relatively small one, is observed. Large age deficits are observed when contextually specific features are used to cue recall, especially when these features require some novel semantic integration. The divided attention results support the notion that the elderly suffer from a reduction of processing resources. The specific pattern of age decrements that are observed will depend on the resource requirements of the tasks involved. It is possible that training may reduce the amount of resources required by particular mnemonic operations (Rabinowitz et al, 1982, p.342-343) Most of the old people do not have much idea about how they are losing their memory. Many of them consider it as a natural process and may not bother much about it. For them memory loss is associated with their age and nobody can help them in this regard. However, present studies have shown that proper training and counseling may help the old people in memory retaining and retrieving. The readiness, attitude or the mentality of the older generation is important in countering memory loss among them. Burke & Light (1981) also supported the opinions of Rabinowitz et al. Perhaps the most popular current approach to memory decline in old age is derived from the levels-of-processing framework. In this view, incoming information can be encoded in different ways. For instance, a visually presented word can be encoded in terms of its appearance, in terms of its acoustic properties, or in terms of its meaning (Burke & Light, 1981, p.522) Kinjo (2010) and HERTZOG et al, (2010) have also supported the findings of Burke & Light. “It is possible to assume that under an optimal encoding period, the age-related deficits occur probably not at encoding but at retention and/or retrieval” Kinjo, 2010, p.185). “Older adults are less likely to employ relational processing strategies to organize unrelated information during encoding and are less likely to use relational and item-specific processing in combination to maximize free recall” (HERTZOG et al, 2010, p.63). The information processing methods among youths and old people are entirely different. Youths always try to find analogies, differences and association of incoming information with that of the information in their memory. For example, when a youth purchase a particular brand of car, he will compare the features of that car with other available cars of different brands in the market. All these comparisons and analysis often help him to purchase a better car. The better analysis helps youths to gain better knowledge about different cars available in the market. Such information will be stored deep into their memories. On the other hand, old people may not go for many comparisons when they purchase goods and thus they may not get enough information about a particular product available in the market. According to Luo and Craik (2008), “age related changes may increase the chances of creation of false memory, memory slips and errors. Prior warning about the development of such false memory may help youths to take precautionary measures. However, such warnings may not be effective among old people (Luo and Craik, 2008, p.350). If older people are ready to accept such warnings just like the youths, they can tackle their false memory creation problem up to certain extent. The most popular explanation of memory problems in old age is that older adults suffer from some species of "production deficiency". The claim is that they are less likely than young adults to spontaneously use those strategies that are most efficient for encoding and retrieving new information even though these strategies may be known to them. According to this view, age-related differences in memory should disappear if older adults can be induced to use these encoding and retrieval strategies or if memory tasks are used that are not too dependent on retrieval strategies (Burke & Light, 1981, p.513) Human life can be broadly classified into three categories, childhood, adulthood or youth period and old age. The thoughts, perceptions, intellectual levels etc are totally different in all these three stages. It is not necessary that a particular thing which was attractive to a person during his childhood and adulthood may catch his attention during his old age. For example, there are many cases in which people are more interested in watching movies during their childhood and adulthood. However, the same person may loss his interests in watching movies during his old age. Instead of watching movies, he may be more interested in having the company of other old people. These changes in tastes, attitude and life philosophies should be used taken into the account while implementing any memory retrieval or retention efforts. Warsi (n. d) has proposed certain strategies to retain or regain memory among old people which are given below; Regular stimulation of the brain with intellectually challenging activities A healthy diet and lifestyle Control of vascular risk factors to prevent small stroke damage to the brain Learning to focus attention better to improve later recall to remember something Maximize sensory systems including seeing and hearing Minimize stress that leads to poor attention and concentration Regular social interaction and support Adequate rest and sleep (Warsi , n. d, p.552) Conclusions Old age is a period in which the entire body functions including physical and mental functions started to slow down. Physical health and mental health are mutually connected. In other words, physical health can affect the mental health and vice versa. Information processing methods, and speeds during old age could be varied drastically compared to that during the youth period. Multitasking abilities would be lesser among old people compared to younger people. The thoughts about life after death may prevent old people from focusing more on a particular task. Life experiences, lack of motivation and the reduced body functions like reduced blood circulation, reduced insulin production, malfunctioning of sensory organs etc can affect the functioning of brain systems drastically which may prevent the old person to think rationally and to store information deep into the memory. Memory retrieval and retention among old people is a complex task even though it is possible. Various cognitive techniques can be used effectively to retain or regain memory among older generation. However, the attitude, life philosophies and the readiness of the person in conserving his memory is important in the memory retention and regaining process. In short it is easy to retain the memory using cognitive techniques rather than regaining lost memory among old people. References 1. 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