Performance – Function, Task & Diseases
Efficiency
A person’s ability to perform purposeful mental and physical activities is referred to as their ability to perform . This performance potential depends on psychological, physical and emotional factors.
What is the efficiency?
An important factor is a person’s motivation , which drives them to do or not to do certain jobs. If there is a lack of motivation, a person quickly reaches the limits of their performance. Every human being has a physical, cognitive and emotional capacity. These are performance capacity and cognitive and emotional intelligence . These three important performance areas are usually closely linked, but can also run separately from each other.
A person who is said to have high cognitive performance ( intelligence ) is often also emotionally compassionate towards their fellow human beings, which means their emotional intelligence is also well developed. However, these three pillars of performance can also run separately from each other. An older person with limited physical capacity can still be mentally alert and emotionally compassionate.
function & task
Human performance and intelligence are abstract quantities that are determined by measurement methods. In the area of physical performance, for example, strength measurement is used in athletes or ergometry is used to determine cardiovascular performance parameters in cardiac patients.
Cognitive performance can be determined by various intelligence tests aimed at different target groups. It is a psychological diagnosis to measure a person’s intelligence. Unlike the height of a person, for example, intelligence cannot be definitively determined. It can also be increased with exercises.
Cognitive performance always has something to do with inherited talents and inclinations, as well as the social environment. A supposedly non-intelligent student with bad grades from an educationally disadvantaged household might have completely different requirements if he was properly encouraged and motivated by his parents or other caregivers.
Emotional intelligence can be determined using test procedures such as the “Emotional Competence Inventory” (ECI) or the “Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test” (MSCEIT). They determine the extent to which a person is able to find their way in their social environment, how well they can assess situations and make decisions based on them. The emotional pillar of performance enables people to form social connections such as relationships and friendships. It also influences success in personal and professional life, because it is not enough to be an intelligent achiever with the best grades and degrees if you lack the ability to motivate yourself and empathy for those around you.
From a biological point of view, there are limits to human performance. However, as a result of progress and a simpler lifestyle, life expectancy has increased significantly. While people over the age of 60 were considered “old hands” just a few decades ago and felt that way, the “new old people” are fitter today than ever before. Societal change, improved medical care and technological advances have increased life expectancy and thus also performance in old age. Positive changes in working conditions enable people to remain productive for longer. The prerequisite, of course, is that they stay healthy.
Older people run research institutes, catch up on university degrees, shape art and science, manage corporations and pass on their valuable knowledge to the next generation. A 60-year-old is as fit today as a 50-year-old was in the 1970s. What young people achieve through physical fitness, older people often make up for with routine and life experience. In this way, a 60-year-old person can achieve comparable results to a 40-year-old, depending on the activity.
Diseases & Ailments
Despite the improved conditions in the fields of work, medicine and technology, human beings have biological limitations. From a certain age, the performance decreases, usually the performance curve begins to sink in physical fitness. Older people are no longer as mobile as younger people, typical old age complaints such as arthrosis , back pain and more rapid states of exhaustion can set in.
In the cognitive area, the ability to react , speed and comprehension decrease. Illnesses such as cancer , dementia , Alzheimer’s and heart problems , which, statistically speaking, increasingly occur after the age of 50, are the price that society has to pay for extended productivity and a long life.
With an aging society, medical care and the care sector must be greatly expanded in order to guarantee care for the elderly. However, medical advances also allow elderly and sick people to live with only minor limitations. Pacemakers , hip prostheses and good advances in the treatment of cancer, diabetes , heart disease and other ailments often enable a moderate course of the disease.
Hello! I am Lisa Newlon, and I am a medical writer and researcher with over 10 years of experience in the healthcare industry. I have a Master’s degree in Medicine, and my deep understanding of medical terminology, practices, and procedures has made me a trusted source of information in the medical world.