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38 Real-World Goal Setting and Follow Through in Young and Older Adults
- Lauren E Cruz, Christopher X Griffith, Caity Cegavsky, Hannah Burns, Jessica R Andrews-Hanna, Matthew D Grilli
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 348-349
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Objective:
The ability to generate, plan for, and follow through with goals is essential to everyday functioning. Compared to young adults, cognitively normal older adults have more difficulty on a variety of cognitive functions that contribute to goal setting and follow through. However, how these age-related cognitive differences impact real-world goal planning and success remains unclear. In the current study, we aimed to better understand the impact of older age on everyday goal planning and success.
Participants and Methods:Cognitively normal young adults (18-35 years, n= 57) and older adults (60-80 years, n= 49) participated in a 10-day 2-session study. In the first session, participants described 4 real-world goals that they hoped to pursue in the next 10 days. These goals were subjectively rated for personal significance, significance to others, and vividness, and goal descriptions were objectively scored for temporal, spatial, and event specificity, among other measures. Ten days later, participants rated the degree to which they planned for and made progress in their real-world goals since session one. Older adults also completed a battery of neuropsychological tests.
Results:Some key results are as follows. Relative to the young adults, cognitively normal older adults described real-world goals which navigated smaller spaces (p=0.01) and that they perceived as more important to other people (p=0.03). Older adults also planned more during the 10-day window (p<0.001). There was not a statistically significant age group difference, however, in real-world goal progress (p=0.65). Nonetheless, among older participants, goal progress was related to higher mental processing speed as shown by the Trail Making Test Part A (r=0.36, p=0.02) and the creation of goals confined to specific temporal periods (r=0.35, p=0.01). Older participants who scored lower on the Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT) long delay recall trial reported that their goals were more like ones that they had set in the past (r= -0.34, p=0.02), and higher episodic memory as shown by the RCFT was associated with more spatially specific goals (r=0.32, p=0.02), as well as a greater use of implementation intentions in goal descriptions(r=0.35, p=0.02).
Conclusions:Although older adults tend to show decline in several cognitive domains relevant to goal setting, we found that cognitively normal older adults did not make significantly less progress toward a series of real-world goals over a 10-day window. However, relative to young adults, older adults tended to pursue goals which were more important to others, as well as goals that involved navigating smaller spaces. Older adults also appear to rely on planning more than young adults to make progress toward their goals. These findings reveal age group differences in the quality of goals and individual differences in goal success among older adults. They are also in line with prior research suggesting that cognitive aging effects may be more subtle in real-world contexts.
The case for strategic international alliances to harness nutritional genomics for public and personal health†
- Jim Kaput, Jose M. Ordovas, Lynnette Ferguson, Ben van Ommen, Raymond L. Rodriguez, Lindsay Allen, Bruce N. Ames, Kevin Dawson, Bruce German, Ronald Krauss, Wasyl Malyj, Michael C. Archer, Stephen Barnes, Amelia Bartholomew, Ruth Birk, Peter van Bladeren, Kent J. Bradford, Kenneth H. Brown, Rosane Caetano, David Castle, Ruth Chadwick, Stephen Clarke, Karine Clément, Craig A. Cooney, Dolores Corella, Ivana Beatrice Manica da Cruz, Hannelore Daniel, Troy Duster, Sven O. E. Ebbesson, Ruan Elliott, Susan Fairweather-Tait, Jim Felton, Michael Fenech, John W. Finley, Nancy Fogg-Johnson, Rosalynn Gill-Garrison, Michael J. Gibney, Peter J. Gillies, Jan-Ake Gustafsson, John L. Hartman IV, Lin He, Jae-Kwan Hwang, Jean-Philippe Jais, Yangsoo Jang, Hans Joost, Claudine Junien, Mitchell Kanter, Warren A. Kibbe, Berthold Koletzko, Bruce R. Korf, Kenneth Kornman, David W. Krempin, Dominique Langin, Denis R. Lauren, Jong Ho Lee, Gilbert A. Leveille, Su-Ju Lin, John Mathers, Michael Mayne, Warren McNabb, John A. Milner, Peter Morgan, Michael Muller, Yuri Nikolsky, Frans van der Ouderaa, Taesun Park, Norma Pensel, Francisco Perez-Jimenez, Kaisa Poutanen, Matthew Roberts, Wim H.M. Saris, Gertrud Schuster, Andrew N. Shelling, Artemis P. Simopoulos, Sue Southon, E. Shyong Tai, Bradford Towne, Paul Trayhurn, Ricardo Uauy, Willard J. Visek, Craig Warden, Rick Weiss, John Wiencke, Jack Winkler, George L. Wolff, Xi Zhao-Wilson, Jean-Daniel Zucker
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- Journal:
- British Journal of Nutrition / Volume 94 / Issue 5 / November 2005
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 March 2007, pp. 623-632
- Print publication:
- November 2005
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Nutrigenomics is the study of how constituents of the diet interact with genes, and their products, to alter phenotype and, conversely, how genes and their products metabolise these constituents into nutrients, antinutrients, and bioactive compounds. Results from molecular and genetic epidemiological studies indicate that dietary unbalance can alter gene–nutrient interactions in ways that increase the risk of developing chronic disease. The interplay of human genetic variation and environmental factors will make identifying causative genes and nutrients a formidable, but not intractable, challenge. We provide specific recommendations for how to best meet this challenge and discuss the need for new methodologies and the use of comprehensive analyses of nutrient–genotype interactions involving large and diverse populations. The objective of the present paper is to stimulate discourse and collaboration among nutrigenomic researchers and stakeholders, a process that will lead to an increase in global health and wellness by reducing health disparities in developed and developing countries.