The Aging Mind: An Owner's Manual

269 Pages·2019·12.064 MB·English

by  Patrick Rabbitt

THE AGING MIND
The Aging Mind offers an accessible introduction to what research has revealed
about how our bodies and brains age and how these changes affect our everyday
experiences and lives. This second edition is fully updated with contemporary
studies and neuroscientific findings, to offer an engaging exploration of 25 facets of
the physical and mental aging processes.
Written by eminent gerontologist Patrick Rabbitt, who interprets research
through his own personal daily experiences, it explores what aging really is and how
to accept and manage it. It explores why our sensory and cognitive experiences
change as we get older and what these developments mean for our overall physical
and emotional well-being. Key topics explored include memory, intelligence, atten-
tion, sleep, vision and hearing, taste and smell, touch and balance, anxiety, depression
and perception of the passage of time. It also discusses how far we can keep and
develop the skills we have mastered over our lifetimes.
The Aging Mind debunks unhelpful myths about the aging process and offers
guidance on how we can age better, allowing us to continue to manage and enjoy
our lives. This second edition is invaluable for students and researchers of cognitive
gerontology, for professionals working with clients experiencing issues around aging
and for all those interested in understanding their own, or their relatives’, aging.
Patrick Rabbitt worked for the Medical Research Council Applied Psychology
Research Unit, Cambridge, UK (1962–1967); the University of Oxford, UK, as a
lecturer in psychology (1968–1982); the University of Durham, UK, as Professor
of Psychology and Head of Department in (1982–1983); and the University of
Manchester, UK, in the Research Chair in Gerontology and Cognitive Psychology
and Director of the Age and Cognitive Performance Research Centre (1983–
2004). He is currently Associated Researcher at the Department of Experimental
Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.

THE AGING MIND
An Owner’s Manual
Second Edition
Patrick Rabbitt
Second edition published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Patrick Rabbitt
The right of Patrick Rabbitt to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2014
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-49051-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-49053-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-03522-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1 Talking about old age 3
PART I
What is aging? 7
2 Why and how do we age? 9
3 How fast do we change? 19
4 How well do we understand what is happening to us? 35
5 Biological signs of brain aging 42
PART II
Memory 55
6 What is memory for? 57
7 Remembering and planning to do things 62
8 Who said that? 71
9 Losing and finding words and names 75
10 Remembering the beginnings of our lives 84
11 Remembering the rest of our lives 93
vi Contents
PART III
Senses 103
12 Seeing 105
13 Hearing 115
14 Taste and smell 124
15 Fumbling and stumbling 133
PART IV
Intelligence, skills and wisdom 143
16 General smarts 145
17 Keeping the skills we have learned 156
18 Reading others’ minds 169
PART V
Living with aging 179
19 Those old blues: depression and anxiety 181
20 The speed of thought 192
21 Paying attention 202
22 Good times and bad times 208
23 Sleep 217
24 Time passing 228
PART VI
Aging well 237
25 What can we do about all this? 239
Index 254
Introduction

1
TALKING ABOUT OLD AGE
I began to research aging in 1959, when I was 25, and have happily carried on for
the next 60 years. Since then, I have probably thought about aging every day. In
Cambridge and then in Oxford, I made many small experiments to find out how
and why older people become slow at making simple decisions. In Manchester and
Newcastle, my colleagues and I spent 20 years following over 6500 remarkable
volunteers who, when we first saw them, were aged from 52 to 92. This taught us
about how age affects people’s brains and so their abilities and their minds. Now I
am older than most of these kind and gallant people were when I first met them,
and it is amusing to recognise the changes that my colleagues and I detected in
them appearing in my own everyday life and lapses and shaping my daily experi-
ence of life and my idea of who I am as I still trundle about. There is also content-
ment in finding that the work that my colleagues and I have done is useful – not
because it shows that there are things that we can no longer do as well as we once
did but because it highlights things that we can still be good at and confirms that
we can still learn new things even if we must now try harder to do this. Everybody
knows that, in general, our mental abilities change in old age in ways that we
deeply resent and so do not like to think about. This means that an account of
these changes may be misinterpreted as a scary catalogue of diverse dooms that we
all must face if we live long enough. The better story is that the more closely we
study age changes the better we recognise how slight they are, how gradually they
progress and what are the best steps that we can take to cope with them.
In this respect, the message from cognitive gerontology is the same as from all
other sciences. The universe that we live in is the only one we can know. It is
irrelevant whether we like it or not, and it is only by doing our best to understand
precisely what is going on that we can hope to change bits of it enough to make
the only life that we have more comfortable. What we find out about our situation
is not always comforting, but there is always interest, excitement and dignity in
understanding it as clearly as we can.