THE SERENITY PRAYER God grant me the serenity

THE SERENITY PRAYER “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ” Reinhold Niebuhr THE SENILITY PRAYER God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Intellectual or Sensory • Speed and accuracy of sensorimotor functioning account for the majority of changes in intellectual ability • When speed is controlled in intelligence testing, many of the differences between young and old disappear

Multisensory Input • Whether due to language processing difficulties or failing sensory apparatus, older adults benefit from multisensory input • Compensating activities are necessary

Driving • As we age we get worse at multitasking • Rivet your attention when driving • Eliminate distractions • Multitasking creates stress

Directions • Some people over 55 have difficulty correlating landmarks and direction • Hippocampus less efficient • Make a mental map, name all the streets, check with GPS

Driving Performance • Drivers 65 and older are: – 25% more likely to have an accident – twice as likely to die in an accident – primary cause is a lapse of perception • 59% of drivers over 75 in accidents report such a lapse (same percentage as that for 15 year old drivers) • No Left Turn

VISION • Men tend to have better day vision – Women’s eyes tire more easily during the day • Women have better night vision – Men’s eyes tire more easily at night

SOC – Selective Optimization Compensation • Selection – acknowledge not deny area of weakness • Optimization – work harder • Compensation – find ways to counteract decline

Intelligence Changes • Fluid intelligence does decline with age: – reaction time, attention, concentration, and working memory decline – E. g. more difficult to learn a new language • Crystallized intelligence doesn’t decline with age – reading and writing abilities, professional skills, mastery of emotional and social skills are retained, and can grow

Compensation • Aging typists with measured slower reaction times, typed just as fast as younger typists! • Experience allowed them to look farther ahead in text scanning and anticipating key strokes.

Watch less TV • It’s not face to face interaction • Rates of cognitive impairment • More time watching TV was associated with a 20% increased risk of cognitive impairment

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho Marx