User:GersonCool/Lifelong learning/Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography
My article: Lifelong learning

My research question: Does lifelong learning and education play a role in the incidence of cognitive decline related diseases (like Alzheimer's) in older adults?

My annotated bibliography:

Annotated Bibliography

Joseph Cook Jr

University of New Orleans

IDS2002: Info Lit & Scholarly Discourse

Brandon Wright Adler

06/10/2023

Annotated Bibliography

Bennett, D., Arnold, S., Valenzuela, M., Brayne, C., & Schneider, J. (2014). Cognitive and Social Lifestyle: Links with Neuropathology and Cognition in               Late Life. Acta Neuropathologica, 127(1), 137-150, http://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-013-1226-2

The authors, from varied universities, worked to analyze various studies testing the link between cognitive and social factors and the incidence of cognitive decline related diseases in the population. Different aspects of engagement are assessed in the reviewed studies, which attempted to draw correlations between various activities that would be perceived as mentally challenging, the incidence of dementia in life, and the post-mortem diagnosis (through brain dissection) of common neuropathological diseases like Alzheimer’s. Overall, studies demonstrated that regardless of a post-mortem diagnosis of a neuropathological disease state, education was shown to reduce the incidence of dementia-like symptoms in the studied subjects.

Several of the points made in this article provide information about the question lifetime learning plays in the cognitive decline of older adults. It seems that it would be encouraging for many people to know that staying cognitively involved throughout your life can help preserve your mental state, regardless of whether your brain is undergoing the age-related physical changes typically associated with dementia inducing diseases.

Gilleard, C. J. (1997). Education and Alzheimer's disease: A review of recent international epidemiological studies. Aging & Mental Health, 1(1), 33-46, http://doi.org/10.1080/13607869757362

This study’s author, a Doctor of Psychiatry at a London hospital, purports to find fault with many previously performed studies that link education to cognitive decline. Several arguments are proposed, alleging fault with the methodology of the various reviewed studies. One argument made is that variations in the initial education levels of study subjects can skew the resultant test data, leading to subjects with a lower level of education being improperly labeled as declining with age. Inconsistencies in diagnostic procedures across the years and between countries, which may help explain the appearance of cognitive decline in the test subjects, are also implicated in this review. An argument is made that variation in statistical analysis, and the weight placed on various methods of correcting for confounding variables, may be responsible for some of the erroneous assumptions postulated by these study’s authors. It’s also suggested that variations in lifestyles, such as the more physically demanding lifestyles of lower income households (which are typically inhabited by individuals who’ve obtained lower levels of education) are responsible for an increased prevalence of vascular dementia among subjects, which is associated with these more difficult physical lifestyles independent of educational factors, thereby biasing study results against individuals of lower socioeconomic status.

With so much data supporting the assumption that education plays a protective role in dementia-inducing diseases such as Alzheimer’s, it’s important to attempt to present both sides of the argument. This study includes analysis that calls into question the assumptions of previous studies, which afford the reader with the opportunity to challenge the assumptions of the proposed topic.

Strom, R. D., & Strom, P. S. (2016). Grandparent education and intergenerational assessment of learning. Educational Gerontology, 42(1), 25-36, http://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2015.1059148

The study’s authors postulated that people with higher cognitive reserve, attained through a lifetime of mental stimulation, were better able to endure the inevitable ravages of aging on the brain, and thereby avoid the memory loss and cognitive decline that so often occurs with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. As it’s generally assumed that education is something that’s relegated to the young, a study was designed that tested grandparents’ abilities, introduced them to educational interventions, and tested them again after the intervention to assess changes. It was shown that cognitive gains can be made by older individuals, debunking the myth that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

With populations attaining increasingly older lifespans across the globe, it’s important from a socioeconomic perspective that the healthcare of aging adults be taken into consideration. The cost of care for an elderly dementia patient is considerably higher than that of their healthy counterpart, and with people living longer than ever before, the implications of dementia threaten to become a considerable expense for countries across the globe. Any research with the potential to delay (or eliminate) the onset of dementia carries great significance and should be included in any discussion about the effects of education in older adults.