A psicometria do envelhecimento

Abstract

The increase of human life span made aging an outstanding matter. The investigation of cognitive functions in the elderly and their changes along the time, produced contradictory results raising several questions. We discuss this subject addressing in particular the following matters: 1- the definition of normality scores and the mental deterioration; 2 – the difference between physiological and pathological mental deterioration; 3 – the contradictory results obtained in crossed-sectional studies compared to longitudinal analyses; 4 – the drawing of psychometrics tests in this age group aimed to investigate the brain-behavior relation.