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Introduction: Age-related decline in executive functioning has been found to negatively impact one's capacity to make prudent financial decisions. The broader literature also speaks to the importance of considering interrelatedness in older spouses' functioning, as these individuals typically represent one's longest and closest relationship that involves an extended history of shared experiences. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to provide the first examination of whether older adults' financial decision-making capacity is impacted not only by their own but also by their partner's, level of cognitive functioning. Method: Sixty-three heterosexual spousal dyads comprising older adults aged 60–88 participated. The contribution of executive functioning and perceptions of partner's cognitive decline on financial decision-making behavior and financial competency was assessed through two actor-partner interdependence models. Results: As predicted, for both genders, one's own executive functioning was predictive of one's own financial decision-making capacity. However, of particular interest was the finding that for females (but not males) perceiving greater cognitive decline in their spouse predicted their own (greater) financial competency. Conclusion: Examining whether partner interdependence extends to the realm of financial decision-making is not only a theoretically but also practically important question. These data provide initial insights that such a relationship does exist and highlight further important avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Age-related declines in many cognitive abilities are common in healthy aging. However, the ability to effectively regulate emotions is preserved, and possibly even enhanced, in late adulthood. This capacity has been examined most commonly in relation to low-intensity emotional stimuli that typically involve static pictures. Evidence is suggesting that older adults may become overwhelmed when exposed to emotional cues of heightened intensity.Objective: In the current study, we assessed whether older adults retain the ability to regulate emotions successfully when exposed to more emotionally evocative (e.g., dynamic) stimuli.Methods: Young and older adults were instructed to regulate, using expressive suppression, their outward behavioral expression of emotions while viewing dynamic stimuli involving amusing and sad films. Facial reactivity, as indexed using electromyography, self-rated emotional experience, and memory for the stimuli were assessed.Results: The results showed that, relative to young adults, older adults were unable to suppress zygomaticus (cheek) activity to amusing films or corrugator (brow) reactivity to sad films, which is likely due to their relatively reduced facial muscle reactivity. Expressive suppression did not affect young or older adults' subjective feelings or memory for the stimuli.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that there are age differences in facial muscle reactivity to amusing and sad cues of heightened intensity. These findings suggest that older adults' ability to effectively regulate emotions may be limited, at least with expressive suppression, in the context of high-intensity emotional cues. Further research is needed to investigate possible exceptions the preservation of emotion regulation in older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has often been argued that there is a relationship between oral health and cognitive decline in late adulthood, but a recent systematic review concluded that it was unclear "how or whether" any relationship exists. However, most of the studies that contributed to this review operationalised cognitive function using a brief cognitive screen and/or dementia status.Objective: An updated systematic review was conducted that focused on how oral health relates to specific cognitive abilities in older adults (specifically, the neurocognitive domains specified in the DSM-5: learning and memory, perceptual motor function, language, executive function, complex attention, and social cognition).Methods: A systematic review was undertaken and completed in August 2018. From a total of 1,304 potentially relevant articles, 23 were identified that assessed oral health and at least one of the specific cognitive domains in an older adult cohort.Results: The most consistent relationships were identified with learning and memory, complex attention, and executive function. For each of these cognitive domains, most studies identified significant unadjusted associations with oral health; where adjustments for covariates were made, at least one of the associations with oral health remained significant in half or more of the studies. Results were less clear for the domains of language and perceptual motor function. No study assessed the relationship between social cognition and oral health.Conclusions: This systematic review provides evidence of an association between learning and memory, complex attention, and executive function with oral health in old age. Gaining a detailed picture of how specific types of cognitive decline relate to oral health has potential implications for earlier identification of older adults who experience oral health problems, and may also inform the development of more effective interventions focused on enhancing oral health outcomes in this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques Brand and Markowitsch’s viewpoint that the decision-making difficulties experienced by older adults during laboratory-based gambling tasks can be attributed to deficits in executive control and feedback operations. While Brand and Markowitsch provide an important platform with which to understand the role of these specific component processes, there are other additional mechanisms that also seem likely to be important when understanding gambling decisions in late adulthood. We focus on several of these mechanisms, and in particular, the manner in which decision-relevant information is received, the role of changes in emotion and motivation (with particular reference to Socioemotional Selectivity Theory), and changes in autobiographical memory that may affect understanding how decision-making during gambling occurs in late adulthood. By building on the cognitive-based and emotion-based processes that Brand and Markowitsch mention as important in decision-making by the aged, our critique highlights avenues for future research in this important area. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although memory for future intentions (prospective memory, PM) is compromised in older adults with cognitive impairment, the effectiveness of specific training techniques to help these older adults with PM tasks remains unclear. Objective: The present study examined the effectiveness of spaced retrieval (rehearsing at increasingly spaced intervals) as an intervention for improving PM in cognitively impaired older adults. Methods: Healthy older adults (n = 40) and cognitively impaired older adults (n = 30) were randomly assigned to either a spaced retrieval or a standard rehearsal condition. Results: Whilst both groups benefited from the spaced retrieval intervention, enhancement effects were substantial for the cognitively impaired older adults, and no main effect of group was observed in this condition. Conclusion: These data indicate that spaced retrieval may be an effective means of helping cognitively impaired older adults maintain functional independence. Copyright © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]