[Memory and planning]

Abstract

The years before and after retirement are characterized by substantial changes in the lifes' of aging individuals. However, the same changes may be appraised as stressful, neutral, or positive, depending on the available skills, experiences, and future expectations. In other words, the subjective experience of cognitive aging strongly determines health-related behaviors and, thus, the effectiveness of treatments. An area of increasing concern in this age group is the development of one's cognitive abilities. The demand for adequate trainings to preventively maintain cognitive skills plays an important role. Persons may also start worrying if observed changes in their memory performance are still in the range of normal functioning or if they may represent early indications of dementia. This paper (a) briefly describes normal cognitive development between 50 and 75 years, (b) provides examples for the plasticity of cognitive abilities, (c) highlights the importance of subjective memory complaints for the detection of mental health and memory problems, and (d) suggests a procedure to help detecting memory problems early on.