Multitasking Myths

By Claire Nurden
Research and Policy Officer

Now I’m no scientist, so I can’t question the validity of the research findings on older people’s ability to multitask, which have been widely reported in today’s media. But we can question the nature of the reporting of these findings, and the skewed impression it gives about people’s capabilities in their later years.

The headlines (unsurprisingly) seize on the evidence that older brains are ‘less nimble’ in their ability to deal with more than one situation at once, and that the ability to multitask ‘wanes’ with age. But surely the point here is not how many tasks you do at once, but how well you can do them. The added skills and experience many older people bring to bear on the situations they are faced with could, in fact, counter any supposed decline in pure processing ability. This point is made very strongly in the recent Lewis Wolport book on ageing.

While some changes in brain functions might occur as we age, we shouldn’t be reporting this as if it was the only thing – or even the most important thing – about getting older.

Keeping Mum

by Rebecca Law, Media and PR officer

It is reported that 750,000 people in the UK have dementia and 12% of the adult population in the UK are carers. Those are quite staggering statistics, so it's really touching to see Marianne Talbot's first hand account as one of those living with and caring for a dementia sufferer in her book, Keeping Mum, published today by Hay House. In it, Marianne has candidly chronicled the five years that she took in and looked after her mother following her dementia diagnosis in 2003.

The topic may sound dour, but Marianne handles it with real compassion and even humour, taking us on a full emotional journey as we watch them both face the daily challenges brought on by her mother's illness. You can feel Marianne's frustrations as well as the profound love she obviously has for her mother. It's got some pretty handy practical tips too, covering daily living, managing others' finances, and the social care system. For more information visit www.keepingmum.org.uk.

Cautious welcome to green paper plans to simplify pensions

by Simon Bottery, Director of Fundraising, Policy and Communications

At last the coalition has published its pensions green paper, to generally positive response. Most commentators - including Independent Age - have given a cautious welcome to the plans to simplify the current system. For us, the fact that a third of today's pensioners are not claiming the means-tested element of the pension means that the current system has failed and needs reform. However we should be careful about at least two elements of the green paper.

Firstly, the very complexity of the current system is hampering attempts to understand what is proposed by way of reform. At the moment even pensions analysts are struggling to understand how the new proposals for a more generous flat rate pension can be achieved without either costing more or having some 'losers' as well as gainers. As one Conservative MP asked us, 'if cost neutral, who loses?' Or as the GMB union puts it with more hostility, 'the real question is what the government is taking away, not what it's promising to provide'.

At this stage, probably only the government itself (and particularly the impressive pensions minister Steve Webb) has the data, analytical capacity and understanding of the current proposals to answer this question, but it will become clearer. The second reason we should be cautious is that the green paper does not propose a flat rate pension outright but as an 'option' and it also suggests an alternative, which is essentially a speeding up of plans to phase out the current second pension.

Amid all the headlines about a £155 flat rate pension for all, this option has rather been overlooked. It may be, though, that the cautious heads inside the Treasury and elsewhere see this as their banker bet if the flat rate idea runs into problems.

Are we losing our Marples?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR Officer.

What’s this we hear of Disney casting 38-year-old Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple - one of Agatha Christie’s best-loved characters who was apparently based, in part, on the author’s own grandmother?

Is it not Miss Marple’s age and all of the lighthearted stereotypes that go with it, which make her so delightfully implausible as a detective; that aside from the knitting and the weeding she is able to use her life experience to scupper police officers half her age and beat them at their own game? Take away those salient qualities and, sadly, Miss Marple is no longer herself – she quite literally loses her Marples. Joking aside, by denying us one of our few remaining older role models, Disney is making a grave mistake. Not only is the decision laughable, it highlights a serious unwillingness to accept and honour older age and suggests that it might be unreasonable to subject audiences to the exploits of an older, less than physically perfect, heroine.