AGE CHANGES OF COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS IN THE ELDERLY

The paper considers the age-specific involution of cognitive processes in the elderly: thinking, short-term visual memory, and the voluntary attention stability. The relevance of the study is associated with the aging population of the country. Skilled intellectual workers when reaching the retirement, at the discretion of the employers, become eliminated from the active working life. At the same time, their experience turns out frequently to be much-in-demand. The psychological issue is the determination of cognitive resource allowing them to prolong their working efficiency. The empirical study is carried out on the total sample of 322 people at the ages from 18 to 89; they include 144 males and 178 females with higher and secondary education who still work now. Using the age section methods, the authors studied the productivity of the superior mental functions at different age periods during natural aging without pathological changes. The authors used the well-known valid and reliable psychodiagnostic methodologies. The data obtained are presented in the diagrams reflecting the changes in productivity of cognitive processes (Y) depending on the age (X). The authors determined the gender shift in the trends and the nature of age involution of cognitive functions and established that the cognitive processes regress, according to T. Ribot’s law, follows in the order inverted to their genesis.  Using the partial sample of 70 people with the higher education and 70 people with the secondary education working at the ages of 60–85, the authors carried out the correlation and factor analyses and detected the psychosocial factors influencing the retention of the efficient mental activity in the elderly. Family support, mental activity, and person’s education are the main factors. It is empirically proved that the cognitive functions regress of the intellectual workers proceeds less intensively and settles down at the age period of 65–70. In the elderly, the prior regular intellectual activity in the spheres of “man – man” and “man – sign” professions influences positively the retention of mental operations. The education of nonintellectual workers has just the latent inhibitory effect on the cognitive functions regress.