SENESCENCE

Author: SÁNCHEZ PALACIOS CONCEPCIÓN.
Year: 2003.
University: MÁLAGA [www.uma.es].
Place of defense: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA.
Place of preparation: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA, UNIVERISDAD DE MÁLAGA.

Summary: This thesis is divided into two parts. The first one takes a look for theoretical frameworks from those who have dealt with social stereotypes, with particular emphasis on those which exist to old age, making a reflection from existing studies on the content and features. Also, highlights the impact of "AGEISM" as a phenomenon linked to the ways in which negative stereotypes toward aging affect the attitudes of prejudice and discrimination against older people. The second part of this thesis contains two empirical studies. The shows that have been conducted both studies has been to 757 participants older than 65 years, not institutionalized. The objective of the first study is to build a tool for evaluating negative stereotypes towards vejes. It has been a selection of elements of existing two questionnaires: "Questionnaire stereotypes about vejes" (Monotorio and izal, 1991) and "Questionnaire knowledge on Aging (Palmore, 1988). The new assessment questionnaire stereotypes negative toward aging developed (CENVE), is composed of 15 items. factorial analysis conducted were found three factors: Health, Motivation and Personality, with a variance explained for each of the factors of 20.04%, 17, 68% and 19.24% with an internal consistency of 0.67, 0.67 and 0.66 respectively. The second empirical study has been to link the scores factorials obtenidaspor participants in the CENVE with a number of variables very mixed: Demographic, psychosocial and personality, such as self-esteem and optimism, among others. The results of the statistical analysis performed to check the differences in scores factorials stereotypes as the variables studied, it is concluded that the profile for older people who maintain highly negative stereotypes towards old age corresponds to the following: older, low level of education, are not participating in social activities, do not maintain physical activity, perceive their health as being worse than that of people his age, feel more years than those who have maintained a negative attitude towards their own aging process, have no responsibilities towards others, poor health-related aspects of quality of life, and have low self-esteem scores and optimism. these results is suggested that the study population to remain highly negative stereotypes toward aging may constitute a population of psychosocial risk. also suggested interest to evaluate negative stereotypes towards vejes argue GRYPOS population relate to the care of older people, both professionals, as stewards finally, the potential interest of designing social programs of psychological intervention aimed at changing false beliefs toward aging that can provide for the elderly are most vulnerable, falling into behaviors and physical passivity mental.

Author: MERCADER RUBIO ISABEL.
Year: 2003.
University: ALMERÍA [www.ual.es].
Place of defense: UNIVERSIDAD DE ALMERIA.
Place of preparation: UNIVERSIDAD DE ALMERIA.

Summary: This tabajo is framed in the context of Social Services Almeria and within them Service Helps Domicilio.Este Service is a provision of Social Services Community preventive and rehabilitative consisting of a personal care, housekeeping, psychosocial support, family and relationships with the environment, rendered in the home of an elderly person in a dependent grado.Va addressed to all those personal or family groups with a situation of necessity being the elderly, the group with highest percentage of attention. The study is aimed at older 60años, users Service Helps Address and belonging to the province of Almeria. Our concern was to find out the psychological and social factors that determine the persons older than 60 years who are in situations of Home Care, what kind of help if you receive is a household, personal or educational, and to what degree the reviben.Además know the mental state of those users, utonomía personal (getting up, getting dressed, care for their physical appearance, bathing, going to the toilet, eating only stay overnight), and Advanced (cooking, shopping, cleaning, washing. take medication, keeping records, use the phone, use public transportation, climb stairs and walk down), to check if there are differences according to sex, age, marital status, place of residence, educational attainment and occupational level. Concluding that if there are differences in gender, status of women worse off in terms of basic and advanced personal autonomy, as well as confirming age to older age groups as the most dependent and deterirados cognitively as might be esperar.Así how in the level of estedios, less educated people being the most cognitively impaired in general.En regard to marital status and occupational level, there has been no significant differences.

Author: NAVARRO GONZÁLEZ ELENA.
Year: 2004.
University: GRANADA [www.ugr.es].
Place of defense: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA, UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA.
Place of preparation: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA.

Summary: Faced with the positions of aging classics in which it is seen as a gradual process, cumulative and universal decline, diverse research groups have been working for more than three decades on the chances of a successful aging. Among them, we can emphasize authors as Baltes and collaborators who conceptualized aging as a process multidimiensional and multidirectional involving a large variableness individual paths of development. Under this new approach, the distinction between current performance and performance potential is particularly significant, since it allows authors analyze as plasticity and on the same research that has been developed over the last 20 years has given rise to one of the topics of most important research in the field of psicogeritaría because it has meant the comporbación the possibility of improvement in cognitive aging. Thus, the early studies conducted by the panel headed by Paul Baltes to determine the existence of plasticity to turn to analyze the limits d elamisma, and finally, in the hands of Margret Baltes to study the relationship between plasticity in healthy elderly low level of education and in recent years has launched a line of research aimed at analyzing the relationship between plasticity and cognitive impairment. That line fits this Doctoral Thesis in which they have analyzed the implications of plasticity in old age in healthy elderly people and in the elderly with deterior cognitive. This paper has benefited from a total sample of 280 elders of the province of Granada that have been evaluated with a variety of evaluation tests of cognitive status and the platicidad cognitive. Thus, the first objective of the research was to demonstrate the presence of plasticity in the elderly regardless of their cognitive status. In this sense, the results showed that despite the qu higher percentage of people with plasticity had no deterioration congnitivo, people with cognitive impairment benefited from the training suminsitrados and showed in a significant percentage, plsticidad cognitive. This result, at least in part, contradicts the results found by the group of Margret Baltes on absence of plasticity in people with deteriorating. The second objective sought to demonstrate the ability predictor of plasticity on evolucón knowledge of the participants. In this case we find that the decline was presented to the two years of initial assessment and is not only affected those who had submitted plasticity in one of the tests for assessing the plasticity used. Similarly, a descriptive analysis of the population made us see that the percentage of people who died or showed decline at two years was much higher among those without calcified initially as plasticity. The third objective sought to analyze the effectiveness of a training program in memory of long-lasting effects on the cognitive performance of the participants and the involvement of plasticity in impact. Here we find that, regardless of cognitive status initial participants, participate in the training would enable them to improve significativemente its performance on the valuation evidence of treatment both inmediatemaente after the same as in a follow-up to nine months. In all cases, the people who benefited most were those of the training are greater plasticity. Finally, the fourth aim of the thesis was to analyze the role of certain psychological variables and lifestyle on cognitive performance and cognitive plasticity in old age. In this connection we note that an analysis of structural equations showed us the important positive influence lifestyle after retirement and cognitive performance and plasticity in old age.

Author: HERNÁNDEZ VIADEL JOSÉ VIDENTE.
Year: 2005.
University: CASTILLA-LA MANCHA [www.uclm.es].
Place of defense: E.U. DE MAGISTERIO DE CUENCA.
Place of preparation: FACULTAD DE MEDICINA.

Summary: The report has been one of the most studied in normal aging, but the intervention in the problems or failures of memory in the elderly has been developed in recent years. Numerous studies have compared the performance of young people and older people in different tasks that valued learning capacity and memory. These empirical evidence demonstrates the existence of a decline in the acquisition, storage and retrieval of information related to age. By studying more carefully the processes of memory, it has been observed that older people have difficulties in using spontaneous strategies for encoding, storing and retrieving information. But if they are taught the implementation of strategies and techniques such as visualization and association, its performance improved significantly. With the launch of various training programs memory is contributing to the changing expectations and the belief that older people have about their performance in memory tasks. So when there are expectations of a worse performance people use less memory strategies and techniques, which contributes to a more rapid deterioration. Moreover, the expectation that despite age, with the implementation of specific strategies and techniques, we can maintain and / or improve the performance of memory, can lead to greater use of such strategies, and therefore, a minor memory impairment. The first experiments using specific technical training, training univariate such as visualization, the loci method, assembly, etc.. With multifactorial results that include attention to those aspects of misguided beliefs of the largest about his memory and employing several techniques and strategies. These methods are preferable to multifactorial earlier due to improving various aspects of cognitive system and that the effectiveness of a cognitive may depend on the activation and participation of various processes. The discussion centers today in the search and d differentiation strategies and techniques that contribute most to this improvement (association, viewing, organizing, repeat ..). Another of the important issues that are raised is the retention time of the positive effects of training. Taking into account the above and because of the high percentage of complaints that people aged 60 or older express on his loss of memory, we have developed an intervention program to teach participants strategies for the display and partnership which can be used for coding, storage and later retrieval of information learned, thus achieving an improvement in the performance of their memory. Following current trends has been a dedicated space to carry out activities stimulation congnitiva and spaces where the expectations of the sexes participants regarding their functioning memory will be adjusted to the real possibilities of each individual. Thus this thesis fits within a comprehensive line of research on topics related to aging memory has been underway for several years in the Department of Psychology at the University of Castilla-La Mancha.

Author: MARTOS MARTÍN ANTONIO J..
Year: 2005.
University: GRANADA [www.ugr.es].
Place of defense: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA.
Place of preparation: FACULTAD DE PSICOLOGÍA.

Summary: Over the past few years, a number of investigators (Agà ¼ ero-Torres H, 1998; Green RC, 1999; Mohs RC, 2000; Norton LE, 2001; Tekin S, 2001) have demonstrated the relationship between cognitive impairment and functional ability, not a consensus of what are the variables involved in such a relationship, as well as the importance of each one. Understanding the cognitive fragility in terms of Raphael et al (1995), where the weakness is not as a state but as a process, we must bear in mind that any of the variables studied, we can extract intervention programs aimed at diminishing or mitigate the effect of cognitive impairment in the functional ability, through the intervention in any of the mediating variables. This research analyzes First, the relationship between cognitive impairment and functional capacity, and secondly, the relationship variables such as the socio-demographic, health, social support and depression are both variables. It is therefore our initial objective to determine some variables that are associated with cognitive impairment and functional ability in a group of elderly. To that end, it is necessary to assess cognitive impairment in a sample of elderly. Likewise, since the test MEC (and according to the scales of Reisberg GDS) establish different profiles of cognitive impairment (without cognitive impairment, cognitive impairment very mild cognitive impairment and mild cognitive impairment and some background variables: gender, age, level studies, carried profession, employment status and income level. Then we investigate the relationship between cognitive impairment and functional capacity (operativizada in 4 areas: self-care, mobility, home life and social life), describing the majority of shares the level of assistance in each area depending on the profile of cognitive impairment. Lastly, it examines the role of some variables that are associated with cognitive impairment and functional capacity.