Keeping the brain active and learning new intellectually demanding skills can have great benefits for older adults
Canada’s population is aging. According to the Conference Board of Canada, a non-profit think tank, the proportion of seniors in Canada will rise from 16.9% to 21.0% over the next 10 years.
The baby boomer generation, which has dominated Canada’s demographic trends since the 1950s, began to retire early this decade, and that process is expected to accelerate in the coming years, according to a report from the Conference Board of Canada. There is.
Over the next 10 years, 5.1 million Canadians will reach the age of 65.
It will affect the economy, medicine, health services and especially education.
Why education? That’s because there’s a ton of research showing that if older adults have the opportunity to continue learning, it can have significant cognitive benefits.
These services, which include many continuing education options available to older adults, focus on prevention, as opposed to medical services that treat injuries and illnesses, so the benefits gained from new learning define the definition of medical services. Applies to.
But what kind of new learning will interest seniors?
Rachel Wu writes, “As we get older, new learning becomes especially important.” Current directions in psychological science In 2019, they added, “One of the most fundamental aspects of learning is combining existing knowledge with new information to decide what to learn.”
That’s difficult when both relevant and irrelevant information compete for attention, Wu writes. “Deciding what to learn is important because learning relevant information helps learners achieve their goals, while learning irrelevant information can waste time and energy.” .”
In other words, “as we get older, our sense of what is worth learning becomes much narrower, and we usually end up basing it on what was important in the past,” she writes.
Another researcher, Margaret E. Baier, a Fellow of the Society for Psychological Science, agrees.In a recent article Current directions in psychological scienceBaier says that as people age, they “choose goals that align with their existing strengths, adapt their approach to achieve these goals by optimizing available resources, and adapt their approach and “Increasingly, we are adjusting our approach to compensate for reduced resources.” environment. “
Aging can also bring about positive changes in cognition.
For example, many studies have shown that older adults have larger vocabularies and deeper knowledge of the depth of word meaning than younger adults. Elderly people may also be learning from the knowledge and experience they have accumulated over the years.
Most researchers on aging agree that new learning, especially later in life, usually falls into two categories: intellectually challenging activities or more physical leisure and recreational activities. Masu.
Keeping the brain active and learning new intellectually demanding skills has great benefits and can help alleviate some of the symptoms that older adults often suffer from, whether they have dementia or not.
Some of the most commonly recommended intellectual skills for older adults include playing a musical instrument, playing card games, learning chess, computer skills and learning a new language.
Learning a new language in particular has proven to be a very beneficial activity, especially for older people. This is because learning a new language can help older adults become more sociable, inspire them to travel and meet new people, and expand their horizons.
Participation in leisure activities has also been found to be positively associated with cognitive function, physical function, and mental health in late adulthood and older adults.
In recent decades, much research has been conducted on the protective effect of participation in leisure activities against age-related decline.
So, whether there is a desire to keep up with trends, explore new interests, develop or refresh physical skills, or study something new, seniors can choose what interests them. , it is possible to explore a variety of online learning options customized for seniors.
Fortunately, many higher education institutions have responded to the leisure time and intellectual needs of Canada’s aging population.
A quick visit to Google (which alone is a useful activity for some seniors) reveals that 13 Canadian universities offer free or discounted online courses to Canadian seniors. I understand.
Many universities, libraries, and recreational programs also offer free online courses.
An extensive research project reported in the U.S. National Library of Medicine concluded that “reading, writing, and frequency of technology use are significantly associated with the domains of language and attention, language, and memory, respectively.” These results indicate that everyday intellectual activities are related to specific cognitive domains. ”
Betty Friedan writes: “Aging does not mean losing youth, but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
gfjohnson4@shaw.ca
Jeff Johnson is a former superintendent.
