Wheew!!!!
Now what in the world does that mean?!?
An interpretation of this mouthful - to the relief of all of the Journalism/English teachers and students out there - is that there is no established, predictable formula for the advancement of old age, particularly old age and senility. This comes from the NYT in an article titled A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond, by Patricia Cohen.
Cohen, a Times reporter and the author of In Our Prime: The Invasion of Middle Age, in arguing her position, has done us all a favor by reviewing much of the current research and thinking on aging and senility.
Many experts, she points out, had contended, and it has been widely accepted, that "brainpower, creativity and innovation" had a genetic set time when it would expiration and the brain cells eventually died off, not to be replaced. It also believed that one's ability to learn steadily declined throughout life.
But what researches have discovered is that the accumulated data did not consistently support these hypotheses. "Some people are much better than their peers at delaying age-related declines in memory and calculating speed," Cohen says. We can all probably think of examples of people, my maternal grandmother for one, who was almost as sharp the day she died as any time I can remember. Althought she had almost no formal education, she loved learning and followed the news daily, watching NPR news programs regularly.
The real question is why, it seems.
It turns out that one "essential element" in the mix is education. "Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even a longer life," says Margaret E. Lachman, a psychologist at Brandeis University who specializes in aging. So even though my grandmother wasn't formally educated, he love of education and all things intellectual may have contributed to slowing down her brain's aging process.
Here is a short list of the academic work Cohen cites in the article which I encourage you to read.:
Handbook of Midlife Developmemt by Margie E. Lachman
Frames of Mind by Howard Gardner
The Mature Mind by Gene D. Cohen
Here are some terms and studies she identifies as worth exploring:
Midlife in the United States, (Lachman, et al)
"Multiple Intelligence" (Gardner)
"Fluid and Crystalized Intelligence"
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