How does the vision change across adulthood, in general?
- Gradually declines, starting at 30s
- Best vision in early adulthood
What are primary and secondary changes?
Primary
- Something that happens to everyone at a certain point
Secondary
- Changes that not everyone will experience
What are the two major structural changes that happens in the eye?
- The amount of light that passes through the eye decreases; difficult seeing in the dark, need more light to read
- Involves the lens; more yellow and muscles around it become more stiff
What are the primary changes in vision?
- Presbyopia
- Dark adaptation
- 50s: Dry eye caused by tear ducts
- 60s: “floaters”
- 70s: Washed out colors (cones), pupils harder to adapt to light levels, loss contrast sensitivity and loss of peripheral vision
Presbyopia
Thickening of the lens, making it tougher for the muscles to adapt to change in distance
- Less acuity for close objects; constantly move the items to see what it says
- Seeing object clearly is more difficult
Dark Adaptation
- With age, decreasing rhodopsin regeneration (takes longer)
- Difficult to adapt to light levels, longer time to adjust
- “Night blindness”
What are the secondary changes with vision?
- Cataracts
- Glaucoma
- Macular degeneration
- Diabetic retinopathy
Cataracts
- Similar to presbyopia but more profound
- Clouding/yellowing of lens, makes it difficult diffuse light waves
- Opaque spots develops on the lens
Glaucoma
Caused by intraocular pressure that causes damage to the optic nerve
- Risk of blindness
- The fluid in the eye does not drain properly
Macular Degeneration
- Loss of blood supply damages the retinal macula
- Reduces central sight and acuity
- Reading loss
Diabetic Retinopathy
- The blood vessels gets damage because of diabetes
- Degradation of the retina, cause loss of vision
- Risk of blindness
What are some individual and social consequences of visual loss?
- Dependency on others
- Increased risk at evening/nights
- Limits in social activities
- Might need to change hobbies
- Blindness
- Reduced mobility
What are the primary changes in adition?
- Presbycusis
- Neural: atrophy of aditory nerve cells
- Matabollic/Stria: atrophy of stria vascularis
- Mechanical: thickening of cochlea’s basular membrane
Presbycusis
- Most common one
- Damage to cilia, the cochlear sensory cells (snail part) due to cumulative effects of loud noises and environments
- Difficulty in transferring sound waves biochemically
- Reduced hearing, high pitch loss
What are symptoms related to auditory loss?
- Difficult hear high frequency to low frequency
- Difficult hearing words, consonants, discriminating speech and its origin
- Sounds become muffled
- Balance issues
What are secondary changes to audition?
- Amplification of presbycusis
More men compared to women - Ossification of middle-ear bones
- Tinnitus
What are the effects of hearing loss?
- Reduction in social interaction
- Uncomfortable to realise you cant hear
- Cognitive declines
- Increased risk
When does changes in gustation change the most?
Late adulthood
- Individual differences to detect different tastes with age
- Sour and bitter
Primary changes to gustation
- Loss and shrinkage of taste buds; decline in numbers, discriminate taste
- Alteration of ion channels; protein that helps sending information over, perception and sensitivity changes
- Lost innervation of taste receptors; fewer nerve fibres, delay in taste
What are the secondary changes to gustation?
- Toxins
- Medication
What are the social and individual effects of gustation
- Eating mouldy food, can’t taste the difference
- Increased risk for illnesses
- Reduce social interaction
- Loss of memories
- Malnutrition
- Food becomes boring
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Fundamentals on Adulthood and Aging23
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Transitioning to Adulthood7
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Research Methods8
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Perception Changes21
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Cognition Development11
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Intelligence and Wisdom12
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Neurological Development9
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Social Cognition26
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Psychosocial Development18
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Social Ecology and Development34
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Occupational Development19
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Psychopathology11
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Dying and bereavement26
