Good news about our aging candidates' minds--they got potential! By the way, only some, by no

[emmaverybo]

means all seniors go on to dementia or Alzheimer’s, a brain disease which can manifest itself much earlier than conventional wisdom would have us believe.

New studies show that judgement and decision making can improve. Further, cognitive reserve and experience can add up to “wisdom” in solving bigger, more complex problems.


The Potential of the Aging Mind
Sandra Bond Chapman PhD from HuffPost blog


If you continue to stay active mentally by challenging yourself to think more deeply, avoiding constant distractions and information overload, and learning new skills and information, chances are your best brain years are still ahead of you, not behind you.

While it is true that many brain processes decline as we age, that is only part of the story. As brain health experts, we are discovering there is more to be celebrated than to be feared. Some brain functions actually improve as we grow older. In fact, as long as no disease is present, the majority of seniors continue to have the capacity to continue to learn new things and make sound decisions.
New research conducted by Joshua Hartshorne at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows us different mental processes peak at different ages. For example, the study finds we tend to be best at remembering facts such as names, dates and places in high school. But this processing speed begins to decline quickly at age 18. Similarly, the amount of information we can remember and use at any given time, called working memory, functions best in our mid-20s. But other abilities, such as emotional intelligence and improvement in vocabulary do not peak until decades later.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, the Hartshorne study examined a number of different brain processes that make up intelligence, rather than viewing intelligence as a single measure as has traditionally been done. At the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas, we, like Hartshorne, feel it is important to examine cognitive health and aging from a broader and more comprehensive perspective.

A few years ago, our BrainHealth team embarked on one of the first-ever studies to examine the link between age, cognitive health and decision-making capacity. Many previous studies had documented a decline in the ability to think logically and solve problems as a person ages. However, these studies had a major weakness: they tended to ignore positive age-related factors such as extensive life experience, reasoning ability and accumulated knowledge that can preserve and even enhance decision-making ability.

More at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-potential-of-the-aging-mind_b_7989946

[hlthe2b]

1. The older who never stop learning v some of the 'younger' who never started...

The gap is infinite.

Age is a chronological number but hardly the best predictor of effective leadership all else being equal.

[mopinko]

2. i am adamant that i hang on to my writing skills.

i dont lean on autocorrect. if i get it wrong, i will correct it myself.

i am on the downhill side of the slope, and my body is already pretty old. but i'm intent on keeping my mind active.
when the rocking chair finally gets me, imma write a couple books. i have had an interesting life.

[emmaverybo]

3. Great! Malcolm Cowley wrote a terrific book "The View from 80," which I read in my thirties. He

advised that older people write their stories.

I once heard at a writer’s conference that too many young people were rushing to publish who didn’t have enough life experience to have enough to say.

Diana Athill, a literary editor and novelist, won the coveted Costa award at 90. The list of folks doing some of their most significant writing after 65 is long.

You might have to wait awhile, but a rocking chair seems like a great place to dream up a few
books.

By the way, me too. I want to write when I grow up and get the time to mine some journals.

Verbal skill is long-lived.

[mopinko]

4. everyone should at least set it down for their kids.

esp women. we tend to become such different people once we become moms, and some of the stuff we did before they came along can really surprise them.

[Scurrilous]

5. ...