The effects of age on implicit memory were assessed in elderly and young adults using 2 priming procedures. Subjects also completed the WAIS-R, 3 tests to assess frontal lobe function, and 2 recall and 2 recognition tests of explicit memory. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to the low-frequency member of a homophone pair in a test purported to assess general knowledge. Subsequently, subjects completed a spelling test that contained the previously presented homophones to assess priming. Young subjects demonstrated priming (p < .01). Elderly subjects demonstrated a high baseline that may have obscured priming. In Experiment 2, subjects from each decade of life from the 20s through the 80s were given a word-stem completion test of priming. All age conditions demonstrated an effect of priming (p < .01). However, subjects in their 70s and 80s demonstrated lower priming scores (p < .05). Elderly subjects were also impaired on immediate-and delayed-recall tests. These results suggest an age-related decline in both implicit and explicit memory.Many studies of memory in the elderly have concentrated on stages of memory or processing of information. The elderly are generally not impaired, or only slightly impaired, on tests of sensory memory, short-term memory, or remote memory compared with young subjects (see Poon, 1985, for review). However, long-term memory is usually found to be impaired when the elderly are given recall or recognition tests for materials such as word lists (Bruning, Holzbauer, & Kimberlin, 1975), passages of prose (Gordon & Clark. 1974), pictures (Smith & Winograd, 1978, or geometric figures (Riege & Inman, 1981). Explanations for this impairment have frequently been framed in terms of information-processing deficits such as encoding, storage, or retrieval and more recently in terms of a decline in the capacity for cognitive processing or a decrease in semantic elaboration (Craik, 1985;Poon, 1985;Salthouse, 1985Salthouse, , 1988.Recently, several studies of memory and aging have reported testing procedures that examined the theoretical distinction between the type of information stored and how this stored information is affected by aging (

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This study aimed to describe baseline and event characteristics and outcomes for adult patients who experience in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) in a quaternary children's hospital and compare IHCA outcomes in younger (18-24 years) versus older (≥25 years) adults. We hypothesized that the rate of survival to hospital discharge would be lower in the older adult group. Methods:We performed a retrospective single-center cohort study of inpatient areas of a quaternary children's center. Adult patients (≥18 years of age) with an index pulseless IHCA requiring at least 1 minute of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or defibrillation were included.Results: Thirty-three events met the inclusion criteria with a median patient age of 23.9 years (interquartile range, 20.2-33.3 years). Twenty-one (64%) patients had congenital heart disease, and 25 (76%) patients had comorbidities involving ≥2 organ systems. The most common prearrest interventions were invasive mechanical ventilation (76%) and vasoactive infusions (55%). Seventeen patients (52%) survived to hospital discharge.Survival to discharge was lower in patients 25 years or older compared with patients aged 18 to 24 years old (3 of 15 [20%] vs 14 of 18 [78%], respectively; P = 0.002). Conclusions:The majority of adult patients with IHCA in our pediatric hospital had preexisting multisystem comorbidities, the most common of which was congenital heart disease. Overall survival to discharge after IHCA was 52%, similar to that reported for the general pediatric population. Survival to discharge was significantly lower in the subgroup of patients 25 years or older when compared with those between the ages of 18 and 24 years.

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