Professor Ian Deary, Director of The Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at Edinburgh University, presents this lecture on healthy cognitive ageing and principally, the research carried out on the Lothian birth cohorts of 1921 and 1936. He talks about the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947, the Murray House Test No.12 and how Scotland is unique in having twice measured the IQ of the entire nation. Professor Deary's lecture looks at four different areas that might be helpful in learning how we best can optimally cognitively age. These areas are lifestyle factors, biomedical factors, brain imaging and genetics.

Dawn talks about the value of being active when you are older. Exercise can help develop strength, balance and power and so can help prevent falls in the elderly. The number of older adults is increasing. She outlines the background to her research and talks about two databases containing data on older adults which she has helped compile. This helped develop a programme of exercise training, but at the start there were no standards for this training. They looked at strength and power in "fallers". She discusses the fear of falling in the elderly and how and when they develop it. Exercise can help reduce this fear. She then talks about the "dosage" of strength training - nearly all the existing programmes do not contain enough hours to do any good - even though a large body of evidence exists. She also discusses sitting behaviour in adults. The older adult should do at least 150 minutes of medium intensity exercise (which leaves you slightly warmer or breathless) per week. They should do this in chunks of at least 10 minutes. The aim is to improve strength, power and balance, so sit to stand reps or standing on one leg for a while. However, there is the problem of motivation to contend with. One way to address this is to use functional fitness MOTs. She describes the work done on this at GCU. She leaves us with three things to remember, sit less, move or walk more and challenge your balance!