Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T20:57:52.385Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive decline and distinction: a new line of fracture in later life?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

Sébastien Libert Open the ORCID record for Sébastien Libert [Opens in a new window] ,
Georgina Charlesworth  and
Paul Higgs
Sébastien Libert*
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatry, University College London, London, UK
Georgina Charlesworth
Affiliation:
Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK
Paul Higgs
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatry, University College London, London, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: s.libert@ucl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cognitive decline and dementia have become major concerns for many individuals reaching later life within contemporary Western societies. This fear of decline is central to the social divide between the third age embodying ideals of maintained health, activity and lifestyle choices, and the fourth age, a social imaginary encompassing the irreversible decline associated with ageing. In this article, we explore how brain-training technologies have become successful by relying on tensions between the third and fourth ages. We review current debates on the concepts contained in brain training and examine the emphasis on the moral virtue of ‘training the brain’ in later life as an extension of fitness and health management. We underline the limited consideration given to social positioning within old age itself in the literature. We further argue that using brain-training devices can support a distancing from intimations of dementia; a condition associated with an ‘ageing without agency’. Drawing on Bourdieu, we use the concept of distinction to describe this process of social positioning. We discuss the impact that such ‘technologies of distinction’ can have on people with dementia by ‘othering’ them. We conclude that the issue of distinction within later life, particularly within the field of cognitive decline, is an important aspect of the current culture of active cognitive ageing.

Keywords

brain trainingdementiafourth agetechnologies of distinctionactive cognitive ageing
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 40 , Issue 12 , December 2020 , pp. 2574 - 2592
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allain, KA and Marshall, B (2017) Foucault retires to the gym: understanding embodied aging in the third age. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement 36, 402–414.Google ScholarPubMed
Alzheimer's Research UK (2018) Share the Orange. Available at https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/orange/.Google Scholar
Alzheimer's Society (nd) How to Reduce Your Risk of Dementia. Available at https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/how-reduce-your-risk-dementia.Google Scholar
Andersen, J and Whyte, S (2014) Measuring risk, managing values: health technology and subjectivity in Denmark. Anthropology & Medicine 21, 265–276.Google ScholarPubMed
Andrews, M (2000) Ageful and proud. Ageing & Society 20, 791–795.Google Scholar
Bahar-Fuchs, A, Clare, L and Woods, B (2013) Cognitive training and cognitive rehabilitation for mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 6, CD003260.Google Scholar
Baltes, PB and Smith, J (2003) New frontiers in the future of aging: from successful aging of the young old to the dilemmas of the fourth age. Gerontology 49, 123–135.Google Scholar
Bartlett, R (2016) Scanning the conceptual horizons of citizenship. Dementia 15, 453–461.Google ScholarPubMed
Bartlett, R and O'Connor, D (2010) Broadening the Dementia Debate: Towards Social Citizenship. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Beard, RL (2004) In their voices: identity preservation and experiences of Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Aging Studies 18, 415–428.Google Scholar
Beard, RL (2016) Living with Alzheimer's: Managing Memory Loss, Identity, and Illness. New York, NY: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Beard, RL and Fox, PJ (2008) Resisting social disenfranchisement: negotiating collective identities and everyday life with memory loss. Social Science & Medicine 66, 1509–1520.Google ScholarPubMed
Bourdieu, P (1979) La distinction: critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brannelly, T (2011) Sustaining citizenship: people with dementia and the phenomenon of social death. Nursing Ethics 18, 662–671.Google ScholarPubMed
Brown, M (2017) Don't call people ‘old’ until death is near, says gerontologist. The Guardian, May 30. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/30/old-people-death-70s-80s-active-adults.Google Scholar
Calasanti, T and King, N (2011) A feminist lens on the third age: refining the framework. In Carr, D and Komp, K (eds), Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age. New York, NY: Springer, pp. 67–85.Google Scholar
Cockerham, WC, Rütten, A and Abel, T (1997) Conceptualizing contemporary health lifestyles: moving beyond Weber. Sociological Quarterly 38, 321–342.Google Scholar
Collyer, FM, Willis, KF, Franklin, M, Harley, K and Short, SD (2015) Healthcare choice: Bourdieu's capital, habitus and field. Current Sociology 63, 685–699.Google Scholar
Corbett, A, Owen, A, Hampshire, A, Grahn, J, Stenton, R, Dajani, S, Burns, A, Howard, R, Williams, N, Williams, G and Ballard, C (2015) The effect of an online cognitive training package in healthy older adults: an online randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 16, 990–997.Google ScholarPubMed
Dakim (nd) It Matters to Your Residents. Available at https://www.dakim.com/dakim-slp/#why.Google Scholar
Darzi, L (2014) Dementia report: ‘Use it or lose it’ to protect against disease. The Telegraph, December 22. Available at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11295345/Dementia-report-Use-it-or-lose-it-to-protect-against-disease.html.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G (1992) Postscript on the societies of control. October 59, 3–7.Google Scholar
Delvecchio Good, M, Good, B, Schaffer, C and Lind, S (1990) American oncology and the discourse on hope. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 14, 59–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delvecchio Good, M (2010) The medical imaginary and the biotechnical embrace: subjective experiences of clinical scientists and patients. In Good BJ, Fischer MMJ, Willen SS and Delvecchio Good M (eds), A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 272–283.Google Scholar
Dementia Australia (nd) Dementia Language Guidelines. Available at https://www.dementia.org.au/resources/dementia-language-guidelines.Google Scholar
Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project (2014) Dementia Words Matter: Guidelines on Language About Dementia. Available at http://dementiavoices.org.uk/2014/10/dementia-words-matter/.Google Scholar
Devlin, K (2009) Millions asked to take part in the first mass test of ‘brain training’. The Telegraph, September 7. Available at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/6140544/Millions-asked-to-take-part-in-the-first-mass-test-of-brain-training.html.Google Scholar
Dionigi, R, Horton, S and Baker, J (2013) How do older Masters athletes account for their performance preservation? A qualitative analysis. Ageing & Society 33, 297–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Featherstone, M (1990) Perspectives on consumer culture. Sociology 24, 5–22.Google Scholar
Federal Trade Commission (2016) Lumosity to pay $2 million to settle FTC deceptive advertising charges for its ‘Brain Training’ program. Press release, January 5. Available at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges.Google Scholar
Foucault, M (1988) Technologies of the self. In Hutton, P, Martin, L and Gutman, H (eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. London: Tavistock, pp. 16–49.Google Scholar
Fratiglioni, L, Paillard-Borg, S and Winblad, B (2004) An active and socially integrated lifestyle in late life might protect against dementia. The Lancet Neurology 3, 343–353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frew, M and McGillivray, D (2005) Health clubs and body politics: aesthetics and the quest for physical capital. Leisure Studies 24, 161–175.Google Scholar
George, DR and Whitehouse, PJ (2011) Marketplace of memory: what the brain fitness technology industry says about us and how we can do better. The Gerontologist 51, 590–596.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2005) Contexts of Ageing Class, Cohort and Community. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2010) Aging without agency: theorizing the fourth age. Aging & Mental Health 14, 121–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2011) The third age as a cultural field. In Carr, D and Komp, K (eds), Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age. New York, NY: Springer, pp. 33–50.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2014) Studying dementia: the relevance of the fourth age. Quality in Ageing and Older Adults 15, 241–243.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2015) Social death and the moral identity of the fourth age. Contemporary Social Science 10, 262–271.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2017) Ageing, corporeality and social divisions in later life. Ageing & Society 37, 1681–1702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gullette, MM (2017) Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazan, H (2011) Gerontological autism: terms of accountability in the cultural study of the category of the Fourth Age. Ageing & Society 31, 1125–1140.Google Scholar
Higgs, P (2012) Consuming bodies: Zygmunt Bauman on the difference between fitness and health. In Scambler, G (ed.), Contemporary Theorists for Medical Sociology. London: Routledge, pp. 30–42.Google Scholar
Higgs, P and Gilleard, C (2014) Frailty, abjection and the ‘othering’ of the fourth age. Health Sociology Review 23, 10–19.Google Scholar
Higgs, P and Gilleard, C (2015) Fitness and consumerism in later life. In Tulle, E and Phoenix, C (eds), Physical Activity and Sport in Later Life: Critical Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 32–47.Google Scholar
Higgs, P and Gilleard, C (2020) The ideology of ageism versus the social imaginary of the fourth age: two differing approaches to the negative contexts of old age. Ageing & Society 40, 1617–1630.Google Scholar
Higgs, P, Leontowitsch, M, Stevenson, F and Jones, IR (2009) Not just old and sick – the ‘will to health’ in later life. Ageing & Society 29, 687–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgs, P and McGowan, F (2013) Aging, embodiment and the Third and Fourth Ages. In Kampf, A, Marshall, BL and Petersen, A (eds), Aging Men, Masculinities and Modern Medicine. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 21–34.Google Scholar
Jaye, C, Young, J, Egan, R, Llewellyn, R, Cunningham, W and Radue, P (2018) The healthy lifestyle in longevity narratives. Social Theory & Health 16, 361–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, IR and Higgs, PF (2010) The natural, the normal and the normative: contested terrains in ageing and old age. Social Science & Medicine 71, 1513–1519.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katz, S and Marshall, BL (2018) Tracked and fit: FitBits, brain games, and the quantified aging body. Journal of Aging Studies 45, 63–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katz, S and Peters, K (2008) Enhancing the mind? Memory medicine, dementia, and the aging brain. Journal of Aging Studies 22, 348–355.Google Scholar
Kitwood, T (1997) Dementia Reconsidered: The Person Comes First. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Korp, P (2008) The symbolic power of ‘healthy lifestyles’. Health Sociology Review 17, 18–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laslett, P (1989) A Fresh Map of Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.Google Scholar
Latimer, J (2018) Repelling neoliberal world-making? How the ageing–dementia relation is reassembling the social. The Sociological Review 66, 832–856.Google Scholar
Lawless, M, Augoustinos, M and Lecouteur, A (2018) ‘Your brain matters’: issues of risk and responsibility in online dementia prevention information. Qualitative Health Research 28, 1539–1551.Google Scholar
Livingston, G, Sommerlad, A, Orgeta, V, Costafreda, SG, Huntley, J, Ames, D, Ballard, C, Banerjee, S, Burns, A, Cohen-Mansfield, J, Cooper, C, Fox, N, Gitlin, L, Howard, R, Kales, H, Larson, E, Ritchie, K, Rockwood, K, Sampson, E, Samus, Q, Schneider, L, Selbaek, G, Teri, L and Mukadam, N (2017) Dementia prevention, intervention, and care. The Lancet 390, 2673-2734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lloyd, L, Calnan, M, Cameron, A, Seymour, J and Smith, R (2014) Identity in the fourth age: perseverance, adaptation and maintaining dignity. Ageing & Society 34, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupton, D (2016) The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-tracking. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Lupton, D (2019) The thing-power of the human-app health assemblage: thinking with vital materialism. Social Theory and Health 17, 125–139.Google Scholar
Merrild, CH, Andersen, RS, Risør, MB and Vedsted, P (2017) Resisting ‘reason’: a comparative anthropological study of social differences and resistance toward health promotion and illness prevention in Denmark. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 31, 218–236.Google ScholarPubMed
Millington, B (2012) Use it or lose it: ageing and the politics of brain training. Leisure Studies 31, 429–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nafus, D and Neff, G (2016) Self-tracking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nosraty, L, Jylhä, M, Raittila, T and Lumme-Sandt, K (2015) Perceptions by the oldest old of successful aging, Vitality 90+ Study. Journal of Aging Studies 32, 50–58.Google Scholar
Owen, AM, Hampshire, A, Grahn, JA, Stenton, R, Dajani, S, Burns, AS, Howard, RJ and Ballard, CG (2010) Putting brain training to the test. Nature 465, 775–778.Google ScholarPubMed
Oxlund, B (2012) Living by numbers: the dynamic interplay of asymptomatic conditions and low-cost measurement technologies in the cases of two women in the Danish provinces. Soumen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 37, 42–56.Google Scholar
Palmer, VJ, Tulle, E and Bowness, J (2018) Physical activity and the ageing body. In Nyman, SR, Barker, A, Haines, T, Horton, K, Musselwhite, C, Peeters, G, Victor, CR and Wolff, JK (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Ageing and Physical Activity Promotion. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 531–549.Google Scholar
Paulson, S (2005) How various ‘cultures of fitness’ shape subjective experiences of growing older. Ageing & Society 25, 229–244.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C and Smith, B (2011) Telling a (good?) counter-story of aging: natural bodybuilding meets the narrative of decline. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 66B, 628–639.Google Scholar
Pitts-Taylor, V (2010) The plastic brain: neoliberalism and the neuronal self. Health 14, 635–652.Google ScholarPubMed
Public Health England (2018) Dementia: Applying All Our Health. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dementia-applying-all-our-health/dementia-applying-all-our-health.Google Scholar
Rose, N and Abi-Rached, JM (2013) Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, N and Novas, C (2005) Biological citizenship. In Ong, A and Collier, SJ (eds), Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 439–463.Google Scholar
Sabat, S, Johnson, A, Swarbrick, C and Keady, J (2011) The ‘demented other’ or simply ‘a person’? Extending the philosophical discourse of Naue and Kroll through the situated self. Nursing Philosophy 12, 282–292.Google ScholarPubMed
Scambler, G (2009) Health-related stigma. Sociology of Health & Illness 31, 441–455.Google ScholarPubMed
Schwalbe, M (2000) The elements of inequality. Contemporary Sociology 29, 775–781.Google Scholar
SharpBrains (2013) Web-based, Mobile and Biometrics-based Technology to Assess, Monitor and Enhance Cognition and Brain Functioning: The Digital Brain Health Market, 2012–2020. San Francisco, CA: SharpBrains.Google Scholar
Simons, D, Boot, W, Charness, N, Gathercole, S, Chabris, CF, Hambrick, DZ and Stine-Morrow, EAL (2016) Do ‘brain-training’ programs work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest 17, 103–186.Google Scholar
Tolhurst, E and Kingston, P (2013) Understanding the experience of dementia: utilising the theoretical insights of ‘status passage’. Social Theory & Health 11, 175–193.Google Scholar
Tulle, E (2007) Running to run: embodiment, structure and agency amongst veteran elite runners. Sociology 41, 329–346.Google Scholar
Twigg, J and Majima, S (2014) Consumption and the constitution of age: expenditure patterns on clothing, hair and cosmetics among post-war ‘baby boomers’. Journal of Aging Studies 30, 23–32.Google ScholarPubMed
Wade, M (2018) Virtuous play: the ethics, pleasures, and burdens of brain training. Science as Culture 27, 296–321.Google Scholar
Williams, SJ (1995) Theorising class, health and lifestyles: can Bourdieu help us? Sociology of Health & Illness 17, 577–604.Google Scholar
Williams, SJ, Higgs, P and Katz, S (2012) Neuroculture, active ageing and the ‘older brain’: problems, promises and prospects. Sociology of Health & Illness 34, 64–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ziguras, C (2004) Self-care: Embodiment, Personal Autonomy and the Shaping of Health Consciousness. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar