บทสนทนานี้ใช้ตอบคำถามข้อที่ 36-40
Many of us believe that a person's mind becomes less active as he grows older. But this is not true, according to Dr. Lissy F Jarvik, professor of psychiatry at the University of California Los Angeles, and a board member of the New Center for Aging at the Veterans Hospital. She has studied the mental functioning of aging persons for several years. For example, one of her studies concerns 136 pairs of identical twins, who were first examined when they were already 60 years old. As Dr. Jarvik continued the study of the twins into their 70s and 80s, their minds did not generally decline as expected.
However, there was some decline in their psycho-motor speed. This means that it took them longer to accomplish metal tasks than it used to. But when speed was not a factor they lost very little intellectual ability over the years. In general, Dr. Jarvik's studies have shown that there is no decline in knowledge or reasoning ability. This is true not only into the 30s and 40s, but into the 60s and 70s as well.
As for learning new things, and the ability to remember, studies by Dr. Jarvik and others show that the old are equal to the young. It is true that older people themselves often complain that their memory is not as good as it once was. However, much of what we call "loss of memory" is no that at all. There usually was incomplete learning in the first place. For example, the older person perhaps had trouble hearing, or poor vision, or inattention, or was trying to learn the new thing at too fast a pace.
In case where and older person's mental faculties really do seem to decline, it is not necessarily due to old age or "senility." Often it is simply a sign of a depressed emotional state. This depression usually can be counteracted by counselling, therapy with a psychologist, or medications which fight depression.
In American society, when an older person loses something, we tend to call him or her "senile" But notice that when a younger person losses something, he does not blame it on senility or loss of memory. He finds some other excuse!
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