Postma, Van Oers, Back and Plukaard (2012) in their paper “Losing your car in a parking lot: Spatial memory in the real world” examines spatial memory including strategy usage in a real-life context. The study took the form of a questionnaire and had duration of approximately 10 minutes; with a sample size of 115 participants and participants matched for both age and gender. Their results suggest gender differences as well as an age effect for spatial memory. One of the main aspects of this study is it’s attempt at ecological validity, attempting to replicate results found within laboratory settings in a real-world setting, though it appears that the cost of ecological validity is decreased regulation over control variables. Postma’s …show more content…
Psychologists seek to be able to generalize their results to a specific population; While an increased sample size may allow for greater confidence when generalizing results, a small sample size does not necessarily suggest that results aren’t generalizable, as long as a power analysis is completed making it possible to calculate a minimum sample size, that will still allow for statistically significant results. As such one of this studies strengths is it large sample size of 115 participants. Participants were then placed into one of six sub-groups; these sub-groups were evenly matched for age and gender. This suggest that any comparisons made using statistical tests such as the Analysis of variance (ANOVA) or Pearson’s chi-square analysis are more likely to be accurate comparisons.
The primary method and source of control variables in this study is a 10 minute questionnaire with 14 open and closed questions, though they fail to control for key aspects such as natural cognitive decline. Though the study does make a point of mentioning their methodological flaws in the form of lack of control over testing situations, such as time of day, distractors, and degree of traffic. One of the strengths of the design is its relatively short time span, preventing fatigue. Sampling was random in so far
Participants recruited from Texas State University undergraduate psychology students through the Texas State SONA system (via advertisement emails) and through undergraduate psychology statistics courses (via instructor announcement) included 177 (female=146, male=31). Participant’s ages ranged from 18 to 39 (M=20.77, SD=3.50). 47.2 % of the participants were white/Caucasian, 19.3 % were African American, 28.4 % were Hispanic/Latino, 3.4% were Asian and 1.7 % were Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander.
Certain qualities are consistently observed in the Alzheimer’s victim. These dysfunction’s, though, are not exclusive to Alzheimer’s disease. Consequently, declaring Alzheimer’s by these parameters is a matter of degree rather than an absolute. Characteristic dysfunction’s have been noted in Alzheimer’s victims, but the degree and severity of these varies from patient to patient. Thus, evaluation of the patient’s mental status must be made based on the sum, rather than a single characteristic. Memory is one of the first noticed deficiencies, beginning typically with the recent and short term memory, and progressing from there as the disease grows more severe. In addition, deterioration in language skills, attention span, praxis (performance of an action), and visuospatial skills are commonly seen. Also observed are changes in the actions and personality of the Alzheimer’s victim. These include changes in mood, motor activities, activities of daily living, socialization skills, psychotic disturbances, vegetative symptomology, and rise in anxiety levels. Again, the
As people get old a few of them will experience changes in cognition with age related capacity rather than intellectual capacity. There are some people who get both disparities of mentally and physically impaired that will led into depression due to aging process of their body. Even though, the forgetfulness is a common among older adults, we as healthcare providers must evaluate altered mental status of the patients. “The evaluation and management of altered mental status are broad and require careful history and physical examination to eliminate life-threatening situations”(Patti & Dulebohn, 2017). Therefore, it is very important to recognize the importance of difference between normal age-related symptoms and developing new health problems that can arise in this specific population. As elders get older their memory lapses it frustrating to them leading them to be more worried about changes in their memory. Nurses have a unique capability to promote a cognitive health and determine the possibilities of potential cases of the impairment in elders. The movie “On Golden Pond” Mr. Norman was a perfect example and showed that his symptoms were interfering with his everyday live when he almost burns down the house with fire, calling Bill by his daughter’s name Chelsea and getting lost in on the lake. Even though, Mr. Norman had heart and dementia problems his wife never discouraged him to do what he liked such as
An estimated 47.5 million people suffer from dementia. Every 4 seconds one new case of dementia is diagnosed. Dementia is a term that describes certain symptoms such as impairment to memory, communication and thinking. It is a group of symptoms and not just one illness. Even though one‘s chance of getting dementia increase with age, it is not a part of aging. Dementia is usually diagnosed after a series of assessments that includes a physical evaluation, memory tests, imaging studies and blood work. It affects three aspects of one’s mental function, cognitive dysfunction (Problems with memory, language, thinking and problem solving), psychiatric behavior (changes in personality, emotional control, social behavior and delusions) and difficulties with daily living activities (driving, shopping, eating and dressing). “The median survival time in women is 4.6 years and in men 4.1 years” (Warren, 2016).
From birth, the body and mind go through physical and cognitive changes that human beings will have to adapt to throughout life. Some individuals lose mental and physical abilities age they age that allow them to live a normal lifestyle. The most common age-related physical changes include hearing impairment, weakening vision, and the increasing probability of multiple chronic conditions such as arthritis, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis (Abeles, 1998). The most common cognitive changes associated with normal aging are short-term, or primary, memory loss, long-term, or secondary, memory loss, and the overall levels of performance in sustained attention. Other issues relative to aging and cognitive memory impairments are anxiety disorder, panic disorder, chronic pain, and mood disorders. This issue may cause several social, medical and family problems as individual
Introductory Psychology students (N = 305) from a mid-western university participated in the study online for course credit. Sixty-eight percent of the participants identified as female, 32% of the participants identified as male, and one participant did not indicate their gender. The majority of the participants were Caucasian (73%), and the average age of the participants was 19.04 (SD = 1.10).
2,491 individuals with nondemented which contains the 51% males and 49 % females reported that there were no problems in activities of daily living and no any trauma within the past 5 years (Norton et al, 2012). Secondly, the cross-sectional cohort study was performed on 2,258 participants without dementia elderly for 4 years. The second one longitudinal cohort study showed 1,410 without dementia elderly participants, who were from Bordeaux, France, got reexamined at least once over 5 years. In addition, we still assessed 8,805 nondemented individuals aged 65 and over, were researching happened in Bordeaux, Dijon, and Montpellier in 1999-2000 and had at least one re-examination over 4 years (Arab & Sabbagh, 2010). Using different countries to identify that lifestyle relate to
“Dementia is characterized by chronic, global, non-reversible deterioration in memory, executive function, and personality. Speech and motor functions may also be impaired” (Butler and Radhakrishnan, 2011). As defined by Butler and Radharkrishnan, dementia is a disease that affects a person for their whole life. In the next part of this paper, I’m going to talk about the dementia and the effects it has on a person live whether it is with the symptoms, overall experience with it, and what exactly it does to the body. Dementia isn’t a fun disease to have or deal with. According to the World of Health Organization, over 35 million people have dementia (Robitaille, Garcia, & McIntosh, 2015). I’m mainly going to talk about the specific type of dementia Alzheimer’s. “Alzheimer’s disease is defined as a type of dementia characterized by an onset and slow deterioration, and involves impairments in memory, speech, personality, and executive function”(Butler and Radharkrishnan, 2011). Memory loss isn’t just the only thing that happens with dementia. They also experience impairments in language, communication, focus, and reasoning (Ellis, 2013).
As we age, it is natural for cognitive deterioration, however if this deterioration significantly impairs one’s independence, a diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder is given There are currently 24 to 36 million people with neurocognitive disorders around the world, with 4.6 million new cases emerging each year (Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Jones, L., Owen, M. J., & Williams, J. (2011); Ames, D., Chiu, E., Lindsesay, J., & Shulman, K. I., 2010). Those suffering with a neurocognitive disorder experience a significant decline in facets of cognitive function such as: memory and learning, attention, perceptual motor skills, planning and decision making, language ability, or social cognition (APA, 2013, 2012). Alzheimer’s disease is the most
Many factors influence the well-being of the older adult population. As people advance through life, memory problems develop sometimes. Getting up and down out of a chair, and walking becomes difficult. At times assistance is needed for shopping or preparing meals. Cognitive impairments, nutrition, and falls are a few items I will be addressing in this paper.
102 students, 72 females, and 16 males and 14 who did not identify in upper division psychology classes from Missouri Southern State University participated in my experiment in return for extra credit. The age of the participants ranged from 19-74 years old with a mean of 25.53 (SD=9.06).
Also in participating in various cognitive activities, the individual has better organizational and coordination skills (Carlson et al., 2012, p. 292). Also it suggests that the previous suggested manner to delay the progression of memory loss or dementia although it may help is not the most effective and is outdated. Some weaknesses are that it focuses on only 1 gender, what may be effective for women may not be as effective in men. Also the study only focuses on the healthy and high functioning women therefore, it does not represent the opposite population. In terms of women responding to questionnaires, leaves room for false information to be
Mild cognitive impairment is rapidly becoming one of the most common clinical manifestations affecting the elderly. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors associated with the development of cognitive impairment in the elderly. A crosssectional study was conducted. Study independent variables such as age, gender, education level, daily sleep duration, and consumption of drugs were collected and two screening tests were used to detect the presence of cognitive impairment. It was observed that sleeping for more than 9 daily hours, the consumption of benzodiazepines, older age, female gender, and illiteracy were risk factors for cognitive
These studies only included undergraduate students, therefore consisting mainly of young adults. This raises questions on whether results can be generalised to those in all age groups.
Psychological research may be undertaken on a subset of society; however the importance of the results may have an effect way beyond the group tested. The value of psychological research varies and the same results can be used in different ways by different groups of society.