Neuropsychologia jesieni życia

Contemporary debate on human aging is intensive and multifaceted in nature because of agerelated transformation in many contemporary societies, i.e. a rapid increase of mean life expectancy (increasing numbers of healthy old people). The aim of this article is to discuss changes in brain and behavior that occur in later life. Life-span developmental neuropsychology emphasizes a close relationship between cognitive problems in later life and age-related loss of large neurons in some parts of the brain. Large neurons shrink into smaller neuron classes. The most pronounced atrophic changes have been reported in the prefrontal area, hippocampus, ubstantianigra and locus cinereus. This article presents also common clinical conditions of later life, such as differential diagnosis of age-associated behavioral changes and dementias. There may be multiple causes of neurogeriatric disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. There has been considerable interest in the possible causative role of cognitive and brain reserve which differs among individuals. Therefore between-individual heterogeneity related to normal cognitive aging is signifi cant. Namely, if cerebral pathology occurs (e.g., neurodegeneration with dementia), persons with a greater reserve may not demonstrate the same cognitive impact as others with the same pathology (e.g. lesion size) but less reserve. It is also widely believed that mental difficulties in lder adults cannot be easily attributed to psychomotor slowness which may reflect a loss of white matter tissue, i.e. dysmielinisation of nerve fibers. This article emphasizes an importance of ecologically valid assessment of older adults, whose everyday activities and real--world abilities cannot be predicted by the traditional tests and sophisticated procedures emerging from purely experimental investigations.