Most people think that as people age, they lose their memory. And in some cases, they do. In fact, many older adults complain about memory loss with aging (Bolla, Lindgreen, Bonaccorsy, & Bleecker, 1991; Fratiglioni et al., 1997; Grut, Jorm, & Fratiglioni, 1993). Sometimes, older adults can improve their memory when trained, but in general, older adults perform less well than younger adults on memory tasks.
Graham J. McDougall, PhD, RN, CS, of the University of Texas at Austin, School of Nursing explored research done on memory training of older adults in assisted-living facilities. This study was done in order to test how effective the Cognitive Behavioral Model of Everyday Memory (CBMEM) is for the elderly who living in assisted-living homes. This program was set up to help improve the "everyday memory, metamemory, and memory self-efficacy" (McDougall, 2000). It was hypothesized that this program would improve the memories listed above in the participants (McDougall, 2000).
The researchers went to an assisted living facility in the Midwest that was owned by Catholics. They tested residents' mental state to see who was eligible take part in the study. Eventually, 19 subjects were tested, 3 of whom were part of the control group. All the subjects had an interview before the intervention of the program. The test subjects participated in a class on memory improvement and were again interviewed at the conclusion of the testing period. The test subjects showed significant improvement in their memory in all the categories after the intervention (McDougall, 2000).
Paul C. Amrhein, Judith K. Bond, and Derek A. Hamilton looked at a study that explored how locus of control (LOC) and age are related "with regard to level, accuracy, and organization of free recall from episodic memory" (Amrhein, Bond, & Hamilton, 1999). Participants in two age categories, old and young, were shown a list of 48 words divided into 24 pairs. "The 48 words consisted of 2 exemplars for each of 24 conceptual categories. [They] randomly assigned words to the items pairs in such a manner that category members had never appeared together" (Amrhein, Bond, & Hamilton, 1999). They were looking for item-pair associative clustering and categorical clustering. They hypothesized that older participants would cluster less than younger participants (Amrhein, Bond, & Hamilton, 1999).
There were 36 participants, 18 between the ages of 66 and 84 and 18 between the ages of 18 and 28, all recruited in New Mexico. The participants took the Internal Control Index (ICI), which measures internal LOC, testing for cognitive functioning. The younger participants had higher ICI scores overall but the differences were not statistically significant. There was not a significant difference with regard to age on the less internal and more internal LOC. To test memory recall, the participants were shown own of the words in the 24 pairs to recall as many words as they could. The older participants did significantly worse on this task than the younger participants. Among the younger participants, those with the less internal LOC recalled more words than the more internal LOC group, though the difference was not significant. The older participants also had a higher rate of intrusion and repetition errors (Amrhein, Bond, & Hamilton, 1999).
Karen Z.H. Li, Ulman Linderberger, Alexandra M. Freund, and Paul B. Baltes, from the Center for Lifespan Psychology of the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, studied multi-tasking, with regard to walking and memorizing. The three hypotheses they tested were as follows: 1. Older adults will pay more attention to a walking task requiring skill than younger adults, 2. When walking, older adults would pay less attention to memory tasks than younger adults to avoid injury, and 3. Older adults would use the provided memory aid less often and benefit from the walking aids more often than younger adults (Li, Linderberger, Freund, & Baltes, 2001).
There were 37 young adults in the study and 40 old adults. For single-task training in memory (words recalled) and walking (speed), both older and younger adults improved from the pretest to the end of the training period, with younger adults doing better than older adults both before and after. For the accuracy of walking, after training, the scores of younger adults actually decreased while the scores of adults increased slightly. When doing both tasks at the same time, difficulty varying by test, younger adults always did better than older adults. Older adults were found to show more dual-task costs (DTC) than younger adults proving the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was also proved because there were age differences in DTC for memory but not for walking, showing that older adults pay more attention to walking. For the third hypothesis, the researchers found that age is related to choosing to pay attention to waking more than memorizing (Li, Linderberger, Freund, & Baltes, 2001).
As has been shown by these studies, memory in older adults does tend to not be as accurate as younger adults, but that older adults can do things to train their memory. All is not lost by aging. The study from assisted-living homes showed that training really does work to improve memory (McDougall, 2000). The study on LOC showed that age and external or internal LOC had an impact on memory (Amrhein, Bond, & Hamilton, 1999). From the study on dual-tasks, we can see that memory is not necessary lost, but shifted (Li, Linderberger, Freund, & Baltes, 2001). We can see from all these studies that many things impact memory and aging.
Amrhein, Paul C., Bond, Judith K., & Hamilton, Derek A. (1999). Locus of control and the age difference in free recall from episodic memory. Journal of General Psychology, 126 (2), 149-164.
Li, Karen Z.H., Linderberger, Ulman, Freund, Alexandra M., & Baltes, Paul B. (2001). Walking while memorizing: Age-related differences in compensatory behavior. Psychological Science, 12 (3), 230-237.
McDougall, Graham J., Jr. (2000). Memory improvement in assisted living elders. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 21 (2), 217-233.
2 Weeks to a Better Memory (http://www.webmd.com/content/article/116/112115.htm)
Age-related Cognitive Decline (http://www.memory-key.com/Seniors/cognitive_decline.htm)
Contributed by Lisa Harkes, April 13, 2006.