Longitudinal Neuropsychological Performance of Cognitive SuperAgers

As a result of the inability of this binary model to articulate the nuances of SA in the oldest old adults, it is suggested that better methods of capturing SA be implemented: continuum-based SA models.These models allow individual changes to be identified more readily through the exploitation of granularity, which is not possible using binary models.Furthermore, these methods can be applied at the population level to more-accurately describe overarching trends in aging.The current study demonstrates that using a binary model of SA in the oldest old adults has several fundamental flaws that inhibit examination of the heterogeneity of SA trajectories.Individuals are eliminated from SA by being unable to achieve high levels of functioning, particularly in the biomedical domain.As a result of these methodological shortcomings, it is suggested that prospective models of SA be continuum based rather than disparate, dichotomous states.