Cognitive aging: activity patterns and maintenance intentions.

This study examined relationships between cognitive functioning in older people and (1) levels of mental, physical and social activities, and (2) intentions regarding maintenance of cognitive functioning. Participants (N=145) were 70-91 years of age, varied in health status and socio-economic backgrounds. Current cognitive functioning was assessed by psychometric tests and real world problem solving tasks. Crystallized ability was indexed by the National Adult Reading Test (NART). Degree of involvement in mentally demanding activities was positively related to a fluid cognitive factor after effects of age, prior functioning, gender, health, and socio-economic status were accounted for. Social and physical activities were not related to the cognitive measures. Age effects on cognitive functioning were reduced among participants who reported undertaking activities intentionally to maintain cognitive functioning.

Real-world problem solving and quality of life in older people.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined relationships between quality of life (QoL) in older people and cognitive functioning in both abstract and real-world problem solving. DESIGN: Contributions of levels of mental, physical and social activities, self-rated and objective health status, self-rated cognitive functioning, socio-economic status, gender, real-world and abstract problem solving were examined in a regression study of factors related to QoL in older people. METHOD: Participants (N=145) were 70-91 years of age. The current cognitive functioning was assessed by psychometric tests and real-world problem-solving tasks. Prior functioning was indexed by crystallized ability measures. QoL was assessed using the Leiden-Padua questionnaire (LEIPAD), Faces scales and Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale. A single QoL factor was derived. RESULTS: Simultaneous multiple regressions indicated that QoL was related to real-world but not to abstract problem-solving ability. Separate contributions to QoL were also found for health and self-rated cognitive functioning. CONCLUSIONS: The present study replicates previous findings that abstract problem-solving ability is not related to QoL and supports the hypothesis that real-world or everyday problem-solving ability is associated with QoL in older people.

Age, anger regulation and well-being.

Emotion regulation has been argued to be an important factor in well-being. The current study investigated the effects of adult aging on emotional expression, emotional control and rumination about emotional events, focusing on an emotion which is particularly important in social interaction: anger. Measures of anger regulation and well-being were obtained in a sample of 286 adults aged between 18 and 88. Older adults expressed anger outwardly less often, and reported more inner control of anger using calming strategies compared to their younger counterparts. These age differences were not explained by variance in social desirability of responding. Age improvements in negative affect and anxiety were partly explained by age differences in anger regulation suggesting an important role for anger management in good mental health amongst older adults. Further, age improvements in quality of life were explained by variance in anger regulation indicating that improved management of emotions with age is an important factor in maintaining well-being in old age.

Planning and realisation of complex intentions in patients with Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND: There is some evidence that patients with Parkinson's disease may impaired in prospective memory performance (planning and self initiated realisation of delayed intentions). Little is known about the effect of the disease on distinct phases of prospective memory and the potential mechanisms underlying these effects. OBJECTIVE: To investigate intention formation, intention retention, intention initiation, and intention execution of patients with Parkinson's disease and test for the mediating influence of working memory, inhibition, short term retrospective memory, and divided attention. METHODS: 16 patients with Parkinson's disease and 16 age and education matched normal controls were given a complex event based prospective memory task which differentiates four phases of prospective remembering. In addition, participants completed tasks assessing potential cognitive mediators. RESULTS: On the prospective remembering task, Parkinson patients were impaired in the intention formation phase and showed a trend towards impairment in the intention initiation. In contrast, there were no impairments of retrospective intention retention or the fidelity with which the patients executed their previously developed plan. The group effects were related to interindividual differences in working memory span. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the planning phase of prospective remembering is specifically impaired in Parkinson's disease, and that the impairment is related to working memory deficit. In contrast, even when complex intentions have to be remembered, the retrospective storage of intentions to be performed is not impaired.

Clinically disparate stiff-person syndrome with GAD65 autoantibody in a father and daughter.

Stiff-person syndrome (SPS) is a sporadic autoimmune disorder characterized by muscle stiffness with painful spasms and usually a high level of GAD65 antibody. The authors report familial SPS associated with GAD65 antibody. The clinical presentations were disparate; the father had an appendicular form of SPS and the daughter's axial SPS presented with episodic opisthotonos.

How many camels are there in Italy? Cognitive estimates standardised on the Italian population.

OBJECTIVE: We provided the standardisation of a new Cognitive Estimation Task (CET). PARTICIPANTS: the test was administered to 175 healthy subjects. RESULTS: performance on the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET) is associated with gender (where women show poorer performance than men) and education (where more highly educated individuals show better performance compared to individuals with lower levels of education). However,CET performance is not associated with age. DISCUSSION: the lack of age effects on the CET may be explained by the task dependence on "crystallised intelligence", which is less affected by healthy adult ageing than "fluid intelligence".

Task-switching costs, Stroop-costs, and executive control: a correlational study.

Three correlational studies investigated the relationship between the time costs associated with Stroop stimuli (Stroop-costs) with the time costs associated with task-switching (switch-costs) obtained from colour-word stimuli and digit stimuli. In all studies, large and significant positive correlations were found between different measures of switch-costs. However, only small (and sometimes non-significant) correlations were obtained between the different measures of Stroop-costs and between measures of Stroop-costs and measures of switch-costs. The results are taken as evidence for the existence of some common or shared specialized mechanisms involved in task-switching, which are different from those used to overcome Stroop interference.