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General Forum: Health | | Can't Teach Old dog new tricks | |
| INDIA : I change every day /minute/second..
according to the present tastes..:))
Posted by: ★Vinåyåkåm★ chitt♥♥r At: 20, Aug 2007 8:08:36 PM IST
LONDON: Scientists have figured out why old people find working with the contemporary technology difficult, while children do not.
Researchers from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Strathclyde University in Glasgow say that as people grow older, it becomes difficult for their brains to override established ways of doing things.
"The best-known stereotype of the elderly is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Older people find it hard to adapt their behaviour to changing circumstances, such as picking up a new hobby, adapting to a new daily routine following retirement, or getting around and making friends in a new neighbourhood or town,” the Scotsman quoted Dr Lauren Potter, a lecturer in applied psychology at Heriot-Watt, as saying.
"So why do older people have difficulty learning new ways of doing things? The answer may be that older people are psychologically predisposed to find it harder than young people to override established ways of doing things," she added.
The researchers recruited two groups of 130 volunteers - one between the ages of 20 and 50 and the other over 60.
It was found that volunteers in the upper age group found it increasingly difficult to carry out everyday tasks in new ways as they grew older. Volunteers aged 40 or above also showed the same results.
"People aged over 50 found it much harder to override their already established actions. They had to grasp the cup in a new way and they couldn't do it, Potter said.
"These findings suggest that older people will have problems when forced to adapt to a new way of doing things. For example, they will find it harder to adapt to digital TV, drive a new car with unfamiliar controls and use other modern household tools and utensils," she added.
According to her, when old people are confronted with new devices or technology, their brains try to adapt but are held back if there are physical changes in the frontal lobe area.
"The frontal lobe is the area of the brain which controls our executive abilities, where we plan and figure out what is going on," she said.
"However, over time there is physiological degeneration in the connections between cells in the frontal lobe. So when we are trying to learn new processes, or override the old ones, a problem can arise because the executive abilities in the frontal lobe region are declining. You do the automatic action instead of the new action. You can't help yourself," she added.
The researchers now plan to conduct a study to see why some people perform poorly while others consistently cope well or as well as younger adults.
"The key for future work is to find out why this is the case for some but not other people as they get older. The results of this could be vital in not only promoting healthy ageing, but in detecting precursors to severely debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer's," Potter said.
The findings are to be published in the journal Ageing, Neuropsychology and Cognition .
Courtesy: TOI, New Delhi
Posted by: Mr. M Kumar N At: 20, Aug 2007 3:50:57 PM IST
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