Is terminal drop pervasive or specific?
Is terminal drop pervasive or specific?
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终端掉线是普遍的还是特定的？
DOI：
10.1093/geronj/43.6.p141
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发表时间：
1988
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Cunningham,WR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
White,N;Cunningham,WR
终端下降假说认为，在死亡之前的大约5年时间里，认知功能会下降（Riegel & Riegel, 1972）；对于这种下降是普遍的还是局限于特定的能力，存在一些分歧。本研究评估了死亡距离与词汇、数字能力和知觉速度测试之间的关系，研究对象为97名在测试后7年内死亡的受试者。只有那些在70岁或70岁以下死亡且在两年内测试的人的词汇成绩受到终末下降的影响。另一项分析将已故受试者的表现与年龄、性别和教育程度相匹配的仍然活着的样本进行比较，结果不显著，但趋势与最初的分析一致。因此，终端下降现象可能仅限于那些通常相对不受年龄影响的能力，如词汇或其他语言能力。此外，这种影响可能仅限于比最初提出的更接近死亡的一段时间。
The terminal drop hypothesis states that death is preceded by a decrease in cognitive functioning over an approximately five-year period prior to death (Riegel & Riegel, 1972); there is some disagreement as to whether this decrease is pervasive or restricted to specific abilities. The present study assessed the relationship between distance from death and tests of vocabulary, numerical facility, and perceptual speed for 97 subjects who had died within seven years of testing. Only vocabulary scores for those who died at age 70 or less and within two years of testing were affected by terminal drop. An additional analysis comparing the performance of the deceased subjects with a still-living sample matched for age, gender, and education produced nonsignificant results but a trend consistent with the initial analyses. Thus the terminal drop phenomenon may be limited to abilities that typically are relatively unaffected by age, such as vocabulary or other verbal abilities. Furthermore, the effects may be restricted to a time period much closer to death than had been originally proposed.