Accomplishments

Age differences in Dysexecutive syndrome among a non-clinical sample.


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Category
Articles
Publisher
Aalekh Publishers
Publishing Date
01-Jul-2005
volume
19
Issue
4
Pages
381-392
  • Abstract

Many studies indicate that damage to the prefrontal cortex can result in dysexecutive syndrome (Baddeley, 1986) which involves an individual’s inability to monitor actions and to initiate or switch action plans and may bring changes in broad areas such as personality, motivation, behavior, and cognition (Stuss and Benson, 1984). Executive functions follow an inverted U shaped curve when considered across life span That is age related improvements in EF occur during adolescence but declines during aging. Children and older adults both show poorer performance relative to young adults on “working memory” and “executive function” tasks (see Zelazo, Craik, and Booth, 2004). The data set (n=60) was collected to examine age differences in dysexecutive symptoms using independent rating about the people without any history of brain injury or psychological disorder across three age groups. Twenty undergraduates rated three people across three age groups: young adulthood (20-40 years), middle age (40-65 years), and late adulthood and old age (60 years and above) on dysexecutive syndrome questionnaire (DEX). Older adults as well as young adults showed significantly more dysexecutive symptoms than middle aged on DEX total scores as well as its factors viz. cognition, emotion, and behavior. Thus executive dysfunctions follow U shaped curve when considered across young adulthood to old age. It supports the general findings based on various measures that executive function follows an inverted U shaped curve across the life span. Even presumably normal people may have inhibition and intentionality problems similar to neurologically impaired people and normal people may encounter dysexecutive symptoms in terms of action disorganization or cognitive failures in routine activities (Chan, 2001). Though young adults show an equal amount of dysexecutive symptoms like elderly adults, there may be qualitative differences in terms of localization in orbitolateral verses dorsolateral prefront