 |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
April 11th, 2011
03:56 PM ET
Why it's harder to multitask as you get olderThere you are with a phone in one hand and a drawer handle in the other, and after reading a few incoming texts you've completely forgotten why you went to open the drawer in the first place. These kinds of moments that happen to all of us, even 20-somethings. They're related to natural brain aging. A new study sheds light on why older adults have more trouble with multitasking than younger people. Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the brains of older people, when interrupted, tend to have greater difficulty switching back to their original task than younger folks. Interruptions are bad for everyone's working memory, or the ability to remember things over brief periods of time, study authors say. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers got a clearer picture of why this is worse for older adults. The study compared brain activity in 20 healthy adults, with an average age of 69, to 22 healthy younger people aged 18 to 32. Participants were given a memory task, which was interrupted with another task, and then asked to return to the original activity. It seems that both older and younger people direct about the same amount of attention to the interrupting task, but older adults run into more trouble when they need to let go of the interruption and reestablish the neural network associated with the original memory. "We find that [in] older and younger adults both, their working memory performance is diminished by being interrupted, but older adults are impacted more," said Dr. Adam Gazzaley, study co-author and neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco. There are still a lot of open questions about how this decline takes place. Unpublished data from Gazzaley's group suggest that a lot of the brain changes involved in multitasking may begin as early as the 20s and 30s. It may be even earlier - in general, depending on how you measure particular abilities, everything is downhill after age 18, says Dr. Barry Gordon, neurologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Some mental abilities do improve with age, such as vocabulary and wisdom that comes from life experience, Gordon says. "How you use your brain overall can get better, but the individual components of it are suffering a gradual decline," Gordon says. Gordon likened an 18-year-old's brain to a brand new computer with nicely polished pieces, but which has not been trained to do anything. People, like computers, need a lot of different abilities, as well as training and experiences in them. "It’s not a matter of raw power. It’s a matter of putting it all together," he said. What can be done to preserve your mind as it ages? Scientists are working on a variety of therapies, both behavioral and pharmaceutical, that could help cognitive decline. Gazzaley's group's study could help those efforts, as it gives a better understanding of how multitasking difficulties work in the brain, said Dr. Scott Small of Columbia University Medical Center. It’s turning out to be much more difficult than researchers thought to identify cognitive exercises that would help the aging brain stay sharp, Small said. There is no specific regimen of activity that has been proved to work so far. Gazzaley's group is currently working on video games with the potential to improve these mental abilities in older adults. Small and colleagues, meanwhile, look to identify potential drugs, including food products already known to be healthy that could turn out to help the brain, he said. All of this does bring up an ethical question: Should we be developing drugs for "normal aging," which is not a disease per se? The general feeling in the field is that it's OK, Small said. But the bar is even higher than usual to show that such a drug intervention would be safe, he said. The bottom line: Avoid interruption if you need to get something done, says Gordon. Do one task at a time rather than trying to juggle them. And if you're trying to study for an exam, spread out the learning over a long period of time.
Next entry »Relief for nickel allergy on the nano level
« Previous entryGo on birth control for 20 years for missed periods?
|
  About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Comments
 |
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
Now that I'm typing this response, I forgot what I had to say about this article.
yuk! yuk! yuk! Good one!
CNN – YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR YOUR COMMENT COLUMN """DISCUS"""" IT WON'T ALLOW COMMENTS MADE FROM MONTEREY CA. YOU NEED TO GET SOMEONE TO WRITE A COLUMN AS TO WHAT HAPPENED. THIS HAS HAPPENED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE, BUT THIS TIME IT MADE ALL THE ENGLISH ALPHABET LOOK LIKE ARABIC SCRIPT.
Dave–
All over but the shoutin'?
thanks for the laugh!!
Dave,
The reason is simple, it appears that people from that area are incapable of turning off their CAPS Lock which makes their posts not worth reading.
Now if CNN could apply that blocking technology to posts from the rest of the world most readers will be very happy.
Dr. Guppy,
No one can really multi-task.
It is a myth that they can.
And if didn't know that by now, you never will.
I was reading something else, and stopped to read this...
We get mentally slower as we age!? Whoa, STOP the,... uh, ...wadda those things called, again?
Now that I'm older I can't make love and fill out my tax returns at the same time.
I think some thought should be devoted to the idea that older brains have many more memories stored and therefore potentially more threads of thought that could potentially become active during any task switch. Even computers have this issue. Who knows how many processes are active at a subconscious level that could slow things down. I would think we evolved in an environment that was not so split second intensive so this was not such an important as it is in today's high pressure world. I could easily imagine there is a slowing of brain processes with age, but perhaps not the only issue. Although I am 70 I notice no substantial change in the speed at which I can visually scan and identify objects for instance.
I agree with this. As I've gotten older I notice that my train of thought can be interrupted by virtue of the things a task may remind me of – memories which have been stimulated by the process of doing something. If anything, it's harder to focus and segregate thoughts simply because the old hard drive is getting filled and needs defragging.
what
"Although I am 70 I notice no substantial change in the speed at which I can visually scan and identify objects for instance."
I think you are an exception. Most people, including me ( only 45) notice a very substantial slow down of our capacity to process fast changing visual info. For me the change is very clear when I am driving a car compared to when I was in my 20s, low 30s
I am only 47 and my memory is shot.
I'm 51 and I thought all this time I just had CRS disease (can't remember sh!t).
62 and I am seeing my short term memory failing me on occasion when I am interrupted. This only started in the last year. However, I can still multi task just fine if I am interested in the subjects grabbing my attention and I have a preexisting data base on the subject. I have always preferred to multi task and people who could and don't drive me nuts. Time wasters.
As for should we develop drugs for geezers when it is a natural process? Darn straight. They develop drugs for all kinds of things and the research will be valuable to all kinds of brain problems and anomalies. Why do we have maternity wards of giving birth is a natural process? Why do we jump start people who have had a heart attack? Why do we fight to keep neo-natal babies who would otherwise die alive and spend thousands of dollars to keep them alive? We do it to improve safety and quality of life. We do it because the best of us have compassion.
Multi tasking is FAR over-rated, as it's been proven by multiple studies that when a person is doing multiple tasks at once, they're efficiency and accuracy at said tasks decreases. What good is an employee doing the work of 3 people when limitations on time and mental capacity results in mediocre results?
Your right. There was a study done with nurses who worked in emergency rooms. The more patients that were brought in, the more they had to multi-task and the more mistakes were made. One of the worst errors was surgical instruments were not left in the sterilizer machine long enough and this left to steph infections.
Yes, many studies have shown that multi-tasking is detrimental to everyone's performance, regardless of age. Even this article states that both young and old are negatively impacted by interruption (i.e., switching tasks) though older people are impacted more. It appears that we are all naturally uni-taskers. Too bad modern society has different expectations of us.
At least the older people HAVE brains. I wonder about the younger generation.
Ha ha!
This is an uneducated remark.
AGING HAIKU
Lots of tasks to do
Take Gingo or Viagra?
Hmm, where are my pants?
Yet another study to prove that employers are far too demanding.
You made a point there. Avoid interruptions and juggling tasks and focus to one thing at a time to get things done.
I wonder if this has to do with a real decline or is it perhaps that younger people are growing up in a world with more distraction and have developed brains that are simply more agile than older generations. I have noticed at work that people my age and younger (I am the at the very beginning of the MTV generation) are very good at juggling lots of things, but tend to do none of the tasks particularly well. However, people just a few years older than me easily focus on one thing and don't mind dealing with every excruciating detail. But ask them to do something else n the middle of their task and they look bewildered. I began to notice this phenomena in the early '90s. At that point I was 30 – a 32 year old was detail oriented while a 28 year old was a task juggler. That difference has been noticeable advancing each year in time with my aging.
Most people in this country today can't multi task in their prime, half can't handle the primary tasks they're given in and outside the workplaces of today.
Wow..those are some pretty broad brush strokes you are making, Chicago Nick. Most people? Half? Perhaps in your small universe the conditions you describe exist, but it is quite a different story in the rest of the world.
what we have here is a statistics "expert" who provides you with numbers and estimates from a convoluted brain.
I agree with Chicago Nick. I've noticed more and more stupid and sloppy mistakes being made, everywhere I turn. People often are simply too distracted by their social lives and/or their smart phones, and can't be bothered to do their jobs properly. There are plenty of exceptions, but I wish I didn't have to keep correcting every form, transaction, and installation multiple times to get it right, and in most cases not even getting an apology for the inconvenience. Life is hard enough without having to do everything over.
The study concludes that older people's brains have this trouble as they are getting older? Duh. Haven't we always known that?
Oh, you already know what kinds of changes happen with age? Tell me, what kind of lists of words can young people remember well, what kind of lists can old and young both remember well and what kind of lists can older people remember well? Don't know, do you? Scientists who study this have found out and the differences tell us things about how brains function. Changes in cognitive function over time are not uniform.
agree with you completely.
anyone know where I'll find the actual interview from this afternoon between CNN's Drew Griffin and the researcher? I've looked all over the site...Many thanks!
It's not harder. We just don't care! Age gives us that privilege.
Haha! And hopefully we polish our levels of discernment as part of the maturation process and develop a keener sense of priority minus the pretense of pleasing others with our efforts or conforming to others expectations. But then you said that, didn't you? I must have been distracted ...
I do one thing at a time...I complete it and do it well. Multi-taskers do many things at a time and rarely complete them and/or do them well
Me thinks you're just jealous of us multi-taskers.
Have you heard of any young surgeon who was asked to perform operations on five patients at the samet time? If you have, have you followed up to see if there were no mistakes made by him? Multi-tasking works well in routine tasks that involves minimum thinking effort, like cooking three different meals at the same time. Whether the person is 20 years or 70e years old, it doesn't make much of a difference. The difference, if any, would be in the speed of performing these tasks; the older people would probably be slower because of their lesser physical energies and has nothing to do with brain function.
@POD
You are wrong. I worked in IT for 20 years and everyone on the development teams were multi taskers. This skill is supported by a great education so you have something already in your brain on whatever subject area you are working in. A teacher has to be able to multi task or lose control of the class room. A facilitator has to be able to do it to keep a meeting on track. A note taker has to be able to hold comments in the head while writing the notes for the past comments. A mother... Heck a University student has to be able to handle many ideas while taking notes on the lecture and the analyses going on in her head. The "trick" is to have a good and well trained brain and an understanding of many areas. If you are just sitting back being programmed then it is likely you have no clue what it is or what its value is.
I wonder what sorts of foods can improve working memory for an aging brain.
There are no foods nor medications for people losing their memory as a result of aging. If you can discover or invent one, i guarantee you will be richer than the stupid mogul Donald Trump.
Among those that care for the aged it is common knowledge that, barring any degenerative disease, exercise for the brain is the best medicine. Puzzles, reading and social interaction are among an Occupational Therapists best tools.
brussel sprouts and head cheese
Food supplements already exist which are very effective against this problem.
articles or examples please.
It is biologically impossible to multi-task. What you are doing is splitting your attention which means nothing can get to your long-term memory, which may be ok if what you're doing isn't really important. Suggesting that it gets harder when you are older is disingenuous and leads people to believe that multi-tasking IS possible.
I have a hard time with statistics that lump everyone into a single category.It is quite destructive given businesses see these studies and make their hiring and firing decisions based upon them. It isn't fair to the millions of folks who are proactive in their approach towards aging; those who 'Get It' and understand the possible road blocks to growing old.
I am very concerned over the age discrimination, among other things that persist in the American market. Why is it an able-bodied person over 60 finds it difficult to find employment? Why? Why should this be a problem? Why should insurance stop certain coverages simply because a statistical study says it should? So sad to see so many good healthy, BEAUTIFUL OLDER people becoming victims of such studies.
Jerry, most people over 60 can out perform 30 year olds.
It's been proven that multi-tasking drops your IQ by 10 points. Older folks just know it's a dumb thing to do.
" A new study finds that a larger portion of the population is in the majority while a smaller portion is in the minority."
This article said nothing. It repeated itself at every turn and shed no new light on the subject.
It's such a luxury to be able to do one thing for an extended period of time these days without a distraction.
I don't care about multi-tasking ability. I'll go one on one with any age if I'm left to hone my one craft.
I have a number of critical questions as to the indisivuals in the study. Had the seniors tested able to multi task better in their younger years? Were the types of tasks asked of them in the study tasks they commonly performed? We know that as you age you can create new synapses and learn new skills, sometimes in ways better than in your younger years. As you age, you trade better focus and discipline for the raw energy and aggressive skills of your youth. But the real proof would be in comparing the mental skills functions (neuropsych) scores of the same study participants over a period of years.
Of interest and advantage of youth today is since they were not required to learn and memorize so much rote learning and could rely on technology for this, compared to earlier generations, they have been able to commit a greater portion of mental skill and focus to shorter and more multi tasking type activities. But what if they were asked to perform test activities that were foreign to them and more common to earlier generations? Would they have scored just as well? And similarly higher than their senior counterparts?
PeofessorMac.net
Neuroscientist
8 Brain surgeries
While the results may seem obvious to most, my first thought was... maybe the reason older people are not as good as younger people in multi-tasking, because the degree to which we multi-task has dramatically increased (e.g. with the advent of computers and cell phones). It would be interesting if the researchers examined older people who were heavy (for the time) multi-taskers, to see if there is a less significant result.
so, basically it's harder to multi-task because..... it's harder to multi-task
who's paying for this revelation?
By the time you reach your late 60s I think you are just tired of ALL of life's "interruptions."
Hardly. I can now chose my distractions and use my hard won skills for me and not for money.
I blame Obama
Agree. He is weak when it comes to multi-tasking; he can easily be distracted by the Tea Party to the extent of adopting their narrow viewpoints.
Very true that major brands do give out samples on their products, search online for "123 Get Samples" we just got ours today. You wont need CC.
Been in hi tech for three decades and can tell you multi-tasking is as much of a joke now as it was then. The more a human of any age tries to deal with multiple feeds (visual, audio, &c), the less focus/attention can be devoted to any one of them. This leads to literally missing the fact there is a forest in front of you because you are so busy gawking at each and every single tree that comes into view. At best, multi-tasking should instead have been called sequnci-tasking, because the brain is really devoting a smidgen of focus on each thing in turn–not truly focusing on all of them at once.
As a 49 year old, I find I just have to defrag my hard drive more often.
Now, are we talking about your PC or your weekly electro shock treatments?
Multiple tasks are clearly getting difficult as I age. I am 64 years old. I will be the first one to tell you I have "slipped" somewhat. Forotten times, dates, faces, what did I do 10 minutes ago, make out a list to go to the grocery store , forget to take the list to the store, etc-etc-etc. I truly hate it more than any one else. You MUST keep your mind active! Do not give up! I truly depend on my granddaughter and wife !
Sorry, but I also think you forgot to mention spelling (forotten vs. forgotten).
When we go somewhere my spouse forgets something because of distractions, so now I always check before going out the door. However, my spouse is a very good driver ...isn't that multi tasking?
Yeah, I bet they're working on a pharmaceutical solution. That's what it's all about – increasing the profits for Big Pharma.
Yup. Big Pharma is looking to make lots of money developing something many people want and will continue to want. The buzzards. How dare they? They should be creating new diseases rather than dealing with something that is known if not yet understood.
Of course, I am in Canada and we do not allow Big Pharma to gouge people like you do in the US. We have a funny thing going here whereby individuals are more important that multi billion dollar companies. It is a blasphemy against unfettered Capitalism, I know. But whatca going to do?
What ? I forgot what I was doing .
You were in the process of assigning me Power of Attorney over all your possessions.
Could have fooled me. I see more young people stumbling while walking and driving erratic because of all these gadgets than older folks. If they ever make them waterproof i bet these fools will bring them in the shower too.
I swore that this was an article about Donald Trump since I saw his photo on it.
Not sure this will ever get figured out. Perhaps it's the old chicken/egg riddle. My 84 year old mother-in-law has fantastic memory and brain activity present and past. She constantly works on crosswords, "wheel of fortune" and the like. But has doing it kept her sharp or vis a versa?
I think you are right on. My mother is sharp, and she is a card game fiend, but my father doesn't do anything to stimulate his mind, and is forgetful. I think if you want to preserve your mental abiities challenging them, and using them is key.
Older people like routine, same clothing, same food, things they are used to, but this doesn't mean they shouldn't try to learn new things and keep their brains stimulated. I think *some* older people do not challenge themselves enough, and thus they have difficulty with doing multiple things.
ahmed fand: I am not a member of The Tea Party, however it appears to me all they want is "Less Government"
A long time ago there was an article in either JAMA or the APA journal about why you should not multi-task - but being older and not necessarily wiser I have forgotten which one it was.... Maybe I was multi-tasking at the time and that's why I can't remember....
One thing that I think the article miss is the average multi-tasking factor that a 69 person had to deal in the lifetime vs what this kids have to face now. It's evolution. Probably this kids will perfom much better when they'll 69 compared with their "grandparents" but will be worse compared to their "grandchildren". We all hope that unless we've sopped to evolve as humans...
If we need drugs, something is wrong. It will just encourage them to push the envelope and people without the drugs will suffer unnecessarily. And I think that lack of computer technology for the better part of their lives and not having grown up with a modern education is a much bigger obstacle than any kind of mental decline that comes with age.
Modern education in the US is almost a waste of time. No one learns to think critically or to research many sources. It is a program designed to brain wash people so they will be good little citizens and buy the bull that the US is the leader of the Free World and that it is respected internationally. I did have a child in a feeder school to Princeton in NJ. Trying to have a rational discussion with his teachers was very frustrating. As I was a high school teacher in one of my lives, in Canada, I know very well how you teach reasoning and research skills. Fortunately for my son, I had taught him from an early age so he did not come out badly damaged and ignorant of the entire world and not just one country.
It's strange that a lot of people stop exercising once high school is over. What we need to do for the health of the country is to establish community exercise centers that're FREE to use. The costs can be stablished by yearly reviews of health savings and the costs of the facilities. I think that the health benefits might pay for the facilities, possibly?
I like your idea Jon. How about we raise the taxes on corporations and those who are sinfully rich? They will ultimately benefit from having healthy employees. Maybe said taxes could also go to making schools that turn out literate and engaged students.
I think what's happening is people are being let off the hook out of high school before they're responsible enough to manage their own health. That's why we have a obesity crisis and a health care system that's in debt.
On aspects of everyday life ranging from mental acuity to physical dexterity to sexual activity to financial security, a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey on aging among a nationally representative sample of 2,969 adults finds a sizable gap between the expectations that young and middle-aged adults have about old age and the actual experiences reported by older Americans themselves....."..
Latest blog post straight from our blog site http://healthwellnesslab.com
Mbt Schoenen Reparatie
In case you have a day once you seem like you can aquire a great deal of composing accomplished, benefit from it. You will recognize that you will get currently, and you will also have other days and nights in which it will probably be tough that you should compose something at all.
Make sure you are reasonable about your gardening skills. It is possible to get interested in the chances that your particular garden keeps. Even so, it will not make sense to get seeds that can not succeed inside your climate. Analysis what kind of vegetation it is possible to effectively develop and stick to your collection when you shop.
Gh Jintropin Original
Make sure that your curriculum vitae does not tag you being an older job seeker. Investigate the latest and many really advanced resume formats and reports and adopt 1 for your personal cv. Don't existing a cv that appears obsolete and old fashioned. Ensure it is very clear that you are firmly situated in the present.
Riptropin 2018
To stop of the craving, use this idea. Reciting the alphabet to your self may give you merely the diversion you should prevent a desire episode. If you find your episode continues more than the track, consider heading in reverse. It may need much more awareness and with any luck , consider your mind away from your wanting.
hgh injections denver
Mlm gives the best possibilities for achievement at your home-based business, primarily because the start-up costs associated with it are smaller sized in comparison with many other typical enterprises. After you have selected businesses and merchandise, situation yourself to make use of your own business.
Hgh Italia