D P Kidder | PubMed Health

PubMed1997

Effect of age on event-based and time-based prospective memory.

The magnitude of age differences on event- and time-based prospective memory tasks was investigated in 2 experiments. Participants performed a working memory task and were also required to perform either an event- or time-based prospective action. Control participants performed either the working memory task only or the prospective memory task only. Results yielded age differences on both prospective tasks. The age effect was particularly marked on the time-based task. Performance of the event-based prospective task, however, had a higher cost to performance on the concurrent working memory task than the time-based task did, suggesting that event-based responding has a substantial attentional requirement. The older adults also made a significant number of time-monitoring errors when time monitoring was their sole task. This suggests that some time-based prospective memory deficits in older adults are due to a fundamental deficit in time monitoring rather than to prospective memory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Adherence to antihypertensive medications across the life span.

Although treatment for hypertension is readily available, poor control of hypertension is a major health problem frequently manifested in late life. Researchers believe that one of the major causes of uncontrolled hypertension is failure to take medication as directed. In this preliminary study, the medication-taking behaviors of 48 adults diagnosed with hypertension, ranging in age from 35 to 87, were recorded for 2 months with credit card-sized bar-code scanners. The social-cognitive model (Park, 1992) for understanding medication adherence, which proposes that medication adherence is governed by both beliefs and cognitive factors, was used as a basis for this research. Therefore, measures of health behaviors, attitudes about health and medication taking, and cognitive function were recorded, as well as blood pressure readings. The main findings were that (a) the oldest-old and groups of middle-aged adults were the most nonadherent, whereas the young-old were more likely to adhere than the other age groups; (b) high blood pressure readings predicted adherence to antihypertensive medications; and (c) medication beliefs influenced adherence in some situations.

Adult↗