Area Residents Show Training Helps Seniors Sharpen Mental Skills

November 13, 2002

University Park, Pa. --- Results from the largest national study of mental ability training for older adults, which included more than 400 seniors from Lewistown, Huntingdon, Mount Union and Altoona, have shown that the over-65 crowd can make significant improvements in memory, concentration and problem solving with appropriate training.

Dr. Sherry Willis, professor of human development, who led the Penn State study site based at University Park, Pa., says, “The results from our local seniors, along with data from seniors across the country, show that practice and training in memory, problem solving and concentration can lead to significant improvement in thinking and mental abilities in older people.

“The jury is still out, however, on the extent to which this training will continue to help seniors with everyday tasks as they get older and more frail physically and mentally,” she adds.

The study results were published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association in a paper, “Cognitive Training Interventions with Older Adults ACTIVE: A Randomized Controlled Trial.”

Nearly 3,000 men and women, age 65 to 94, participated in the study conducted at senior housing, community centers, churches and hospital/clinics in Birmingham, Detroit, Boston, Baltimore and Indianapolis as well as locally.

Local participants were drawn from the Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly (PACE) program. PACE provides help, through the state lottery, with the cost of prescriptions for Pennsylvania seniors.

The local seniors, like their counterparts across the U.S., either received practice on ability tests or training on one of three abilities: memory, problem solving or concentration. Training involved ten educational sessions.

In the memory training sessions, the participants learned several strategies to recall lists or stories. The reasoning training sessions, which were based on a Penn State design, showed the seniors strategies for understanding patterns such as a schedule for taking medications or a bus route. In the speed and concentration training sessions, the seniors had to attend to and quickly identify which of two vehicles appeared on a computer screen. As the training progressed, the vehicle images appeared in a variety of locations on the screen, requiring greater concentration.

All participants took tests before and after the training. Participants were tested again approximately 10 months after training and some of the training participants received additional booster sessions. Finally, all participants were followed up approximately two years after the study began.

Comparison of the groups who received training with the groups who only practiced the tests showed greater improvement with training – since the training groups received instruction and longer periods of practice. The booster training enhanced skills further in the trained individuals and the gains were maintained when they were tested a year later.

Willis notes, “The positive effects from training and practice are large and comparable to the magnitude of aging-related decline over a 7 to 14 year period.”

The National Institutes on Aging and the National Institute of Nursing Research supported the study.

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Contacts:

Barbara Hale (814) 865-9481 bah@psu.edu

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 vfong@psu.edu

EDITORS: Dr. Willis is at slw@psu.edu via email or 814-863-9735 by phone. A NIH press release on the nation-wide project will be posted Nov. 13, 2002 at www.nia.nih.gov