A multimodal assessment of sensory thresholds in aging

Author(s): Cruz, L. A., Marks, L. E., Lakatos, S.

Journal/Book: J Gerontol Ser B Psychol Sci. 1998; 53: 1275 K Street NW, Suite 350, Washington, DC 20005-4006. Gerontological Society Amer. P263-P272.

Abstract: Young and elderly subjects yielded forced-choice detection thresholds in each of seven sensory tasks: (I) taste of sodium chloride, (2) smell of butanol, (3) cooling, (4) low-frequency vibrotaction, (5) high-frequency vibrotaction, (6) low-frequency hearing and (7) high-frequency hearing. Average scores across these tasks nearly perfectly separated the 22 elderly from the 15 young subjects. For individual modalities, however separation between the groups varied from complete (high-frequency touch) to negligible (low-frequency hearing). Scores on the Boston Picture Naming Test and especially the Wechsler Logical Memory Test correlated strongly with average threshold score (Pearson r = .84) and moderately with scores on individual modalities. This sensory-cognitive link is not caused, as might be supposed, by diminishing age-related capacity to handle the detection task because the very same task resulted in negligible age effect (low-frequency hearing) and large effect (high-frequency hearing) in the same subjects.

Note: Article Stevens JC, John B Pierce Fdn Lab, 290 Congress Ave, New Haven,CT 06519 USA

Keyword(s): OLFACTORY SENSITIVITY; SPATIAL ACUITY; LIFE-SPAN; ODOR IDENTIFICATION; OLD-AGE; TOUCH; VARIABILITY; DECLINE; TASTE

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