A University of Queensland PhD student's research on cognitive changes with age has won her the International Association of Gerontology's inaugural Chinoin Young Investigators' Award.
Psychology Department student Kaarin Anstey is in the final year of her PhD on normal intellectual changes in old age, supervised by Associate Professor Glen Smith.
As the award's winner, Ms Anstey will be flown to the Association's World Congress in Adelaide in August where she will present a paper on her research. The Congress is held every four years. She will also receive US$1500 in prize money.
For her PhD, Ms Anstey developed measures of cognitive (intellectual ability including reasoning and memory) ageing based on biological factors rather than chronological age.
The measures are based on physical health factors such as vision, hearing and breathing and mental health factors such as activities, depression and well-being.
'My PhD has found that these biological measures rather than chronological age are a far more reliable indicator of a person's cognitive functioning as they age,' she said.
The measures were tested on 180 Brisbane women aged between 60 and 90.
Ms Anstey began her PhD at the University after winning the 1994 University of Queensland Travelling Scholarship.
A Sydney University graduate, Ms Anstey also won the inaugural Elsie Harwood Award in 1992, presented by the Australian Psychological Society for honours-level ageing research.
She spent two years as a research officer in the Academic Department of Psycho-geriatrics at the University of New South Wales before deciding to pursue a PhD.
For more information, contact Ms Anstey (telephone 3358 3916).
