Physical Development
Physical Development
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What Changes?
Biological aging
• Physical
• Physiological and sensory
• Health status
Biological Aging
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Deterioration of organism from timedependent, irreversible changes
Intrinsic to all
Human life span fixed, but life
expectancy at birth changing
Females:
82 years
Males:
77 years
Human Survival Curve
Approaching
rectangular
shape
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Primary aging
• Senescence
• Weakening/decline of body
• Normal process
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Secondary aging
• Increase in rate of senescence due to
extrinsic factors
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Environment (UV light: cataracts; noise
pollution: hearing loss)
Behaviour (smoking: decline in respiration)
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Primary aging
• Sensory
• physical:
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Physiological
Musculo-skeletal
• Theories of aging
• Factors affecting health
• Trends in disability
Sensory Changes
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Gradual decrease in sensory capacity
Often undermine cognitive
functioning
Vision
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Field of vision restricts (changing
retinal metabolism)
Presbyopia: Accommodation declines
(loss of near vision from decreased
flexibility of lens)
Sensitivity to glare, recovery time
increases
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Colour sensitivity declines (70 years)
• Blue/green discrimination difficulty due
to yellowing of lens
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Dark adaptation decreases: reduced
light transmitting properties of lens
Hearing
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Presbycusis
• Decreased sensitivity to high-frequency
sounds
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Taste, smell:
• Taste not affected
• Smell diminishes in mid-50s
Theories of Aging
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Programmed theory
• Metabolic theory
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Damage to mitochondria impairs function in
older cells
Restricted diet?
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Stochastic theories
• Random wear and tear
• Free radicals
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Reactive molecules produced in cell from
oxygen metabolism
• Oxygen-free radical
• Accumulate, destroy fats, protiens critical to cell
functioning
• Damage DNA
• Genetic therapy?
• Diet: antioxidant enzymes neutralize free radicals
Anti-oxidants
Physical Health
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Mortality: death rate (deaths per
100,000 per year)
• Dropping
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Morbidity: prevalence of disease in a
population
• Chronic (long-term)
• Acute (short, suddent)
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Disability
• Inability to perform activities of daily
living
• Later in life, shorter duration
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Vitality
• Subjective rating of health and energy
Factors affecting health
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Gender
• Mortality: men higher than women
• Morbidity: women higher than men
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Chronic: women>men
Serious acute: men>women
• Heart disease: diagnostic procedures, treatment,
protective factors may have different effects on
women than on men
Factors
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Income
• Directly related to perception of health
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Age
• Much variation
• Young adulthood
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Good health
Few hospitalizations
Respiratory ailments most common (colds)
Few chronic ailments
Fatal diseases rare
Leading causes of death: M: accidents/F:
cancer
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Middle adulthood
• Common daily symptoms
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Musculo-skeletal problems (pain, stiffness in
joints)
Respiratory ailments (colds)
• Disease more commonplace
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Chronic: main source of discomfort
Arthritis, hypertension, sinusitis, heart
conditions, hearing impairments
Fatal diseases: diabetes, ateriosclerosis,
emphysema, cancer
Death: heart disease, cancer
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Late Adulthood
• Common: musculoskeletal symptoms
(arthritis)
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90%: pain symptoms, stiffness
• Acute problems diminish sharply
 Predominant: arthritis, hypertension,
heart conditions, hearing impairments
 More severe than in middle adulthood
 Limit work and leisure actiities
 Hospital stays: life-threatening
diseases
 Death: heart disease, cancer, stroke
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Subjective evaluation of health
declines with age (less than
expected)
Types of symptoms change
Rate of acute conditions drops,
chronic rises
Nonfatal disease: arthritis, sensory
impairments
Fatal: increase with age
Limitations to daily activities increase
Trends in disabilitly
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Compression-of-Morbidity hypothesis
• James Fries
• Prevention, better treatment
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Portion of life spent in disease and disability
compressed, delayed
Poor health later in life, shorter duration
More healthy years
Lack of data on incidence of disease and
disability
But: falling rates of disability among elderly,
falling rates of chronic disease
Successful Aging
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Hardiness and thriving (Perls, 1995)
• Genetic determiners of “hardiness” in
oldest old
• Adaptive capacity (ability to overcome
disease or injury)
• Functional reserve: how much of organ
required for adequate performance
(determines ability to deal with disease)
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More hardy
• Slower rate of progress
• Higher threshold
• Symptoms of age-related disease (e.g.,
Alzheimers) appear later
• Morbidity, mortality, disability
compressed into shorter period
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More hardy
• Slower rate of progress of symptoms of
disease than in less hardy
• Threshold for disease lowers more
slowly
• Symptoms of age-related disease (e.g.,
Alzheimers) appear later (b vs. a)
• Morbidity, mortality, disability
compressed into shorter period
Possible explanations for
hardiness
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Longevity genes: increased resistance
against oxygen radicals
• Slow rate of damage
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Low complement of deleterious genes
• E.g., Apolipoprotien E (apo-E) related to risk of
Alzheimer's
• Gene for protein apo-E less prevalent in oldestold survivors
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18% of 90-103 year-olds
25% of under-65 year-olds
• Adaptive capacity (ability to cope with
and overcome disease or injury) higher
in more-hardy
• Functional reserve (how much of an
organ is required for its adequate
performance) higher
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Autopsy studies of “healthy” oldestold brains
• No outward signs of disease, but level of
neurofibrillary tangles would indicate
dementia in younger brain
• Excess reserve of brain function
compensates for processes damaging
the brain
Two Basic Principles of Normal
Aging
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Variability of aging rates
• Longitudinal studies (e.g., Baltimore
Study)
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Aging rates vary remarkably (60 year olds
like 40; some 40 year-olds like 60,
physically)
Differences in appearance mirrored on
physiological tests
Variability increases as age increases
Individual aging rates vary across years,
and across physical systems
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Variability of Aging Patterns
• Several aging paths:
• Cross-sectional research
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Some functions decline in a regular way
over time
Other functions are stable, unchanged or
decline only in terminal phase of life
• Physiological loss, but only when an
age-related illness is experienced
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E.g., heart disease correlated with a decline
in heart pumping capacity with age
Without heart disease, pumping capacity as
well at age 70 as at age 30
• Terminal Loss Pattern
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Loss in a normally stable function may be
sign of impending death
E.g., immune system: # of lymphocytes
(white blood cells) stable normally stale
• Decline occurred in minority of Baltimore Study
sample
• Reported good health; good physical exams
• At next follow-up for study – subgroup more
likely to have died
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Loss occurs, but body compensates for the
change
• E.g., brain: neural loss but robust individual
cell growth (new dendrites, new connections)
may help preserve thinking and memory
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Physical Aging: not only loss
• Stability
• Resiliency
• Capacity for growth
Term Test 1
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50 MC
5 (out of 7) short answer
Ideas and Issues
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Why study adult development
Demographic changes
Life-span perspective
Social Realities of Aging
• Special needs
• Stereotypical attitudes
• Ageism
Research in Adult Development
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Developmental research designs
Special problems in studying adult
development
• Sources of bias
• Identifying samples
Theories and Psychosocial
Development
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“World Views”
• Contextual
• Organismic
• Mechanistic
Psychosocial Development
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Contextual
• Bronfenbrenner: Ecological system’s
theory
• Neugarten: Timing of Events
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Organismic
• Stages (psychoanalytic)
• Erikson
• Levinson
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Mechanistic
• Trait approach
• McCrae & Costa: Five-Factor model
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Stability vs. change in adult
personality development
Identity
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Self-concept
Erikson
James Marcia
Physical Development
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Biological aging
• Primary, secondary
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Physical changes
• Body systems (heart, lungs, musculoskeletal)
• Sensory systems (vision, hearing)
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Theories of Aging
• Programmed
• Stochastic
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Hardiness in Oldest-Old