Alicia Sales

Reminiscence and dementia: a therapeutic intervention

BACKGROUND Dementia is a significant public health problem. One non-pharmacological therapy that has shown its effectiveness is reminiscence, which is a psychological intervention designed to address issues of particular relevance to older adults. The aim of this study was to examine the benefits of an integrative reminiscence program in elderly people with dementia. METHODS A quasi-experimental design and purposeful sampling were conducted at two retirement homes. Forty-two elderly adults with dementia were studied to measure the effect of the therapy (23 in the experimental group and 19 in the control group). The treatment group activity was held in 10 sessions. RESULTS The treatment group significantly improved their depressive symptoms and self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, and environmental mastery. CONCLUSIONS This study provides support for the effectiveness of integrative reminiscence therapy (RT) as an intervention in people with dementia, especially in reducing depressive symptoms and improving psychological well-being, with the therapy being effective on personal and emotional variables.

Repetition increases false recollection in older people

Aging is accompanied by an increase in false alarms on recognition tasks, and these false alarms increase with repetition in older people (but not in young people). Traditionally, this increase was thought to be due to a greater use of familiarity in older people, but it was recently pointed out that false alarms also have a clear recollection component in these people. The main objective of our study is to analyze whether the expected increase in the rate of false alarms in older people due to stimulus repetition is produced by an inadequate use of familiarity, recollection, or both processes. To do so, we carried out an associative recognition experiment using pairs of words and pairs of images (faces associated with everyday contexts), in which we analyzed whether the repetition of some of the pairs increases the rate of false alarms in older people (compared to what was found in a sample of young people), and whether this increase is due to familiarity or recollection (using a remember-know paradigm). Our results show that the increase in false alarms in older people due to repetition is produced by false recollection, calling into question both dual and single-process models of recognition. Also, older people falsely recollect details of never studied stimuli, a clear case of perceptual illusions. These results are better explained in terms of source-monitoring errors, mediated by peoples retrieval expectations.

Resilience and Coping as Predictors of Well-Being in Adults

ABSTRACT Well-being is one of the keys to successful and optimal development across the lifespan. Based on the idea that development involves changes in individuals’ adaptive capacity to meet their needs over time, the changes that occur in the second half of life require effort to adapt to the new reality. This study used a structural model to test the effects of coping strategies and resilience on well-being in a sample of 305 mid-life adults. Several constructs were measured: coping strategies, resilience, and well-being. A final model was obtained with good fit indices; psychological well-being was positively predicted by resilience and negatively by emotional coping. Moreover, positive reappraisal and avoidance form part of both coping strategies (problem-focused and emotion-focused). Considering the characteristics of the model, educational intervention programs could be developed to promote skills that favor good adaptation at this stage in the life cycle and contribute to promoting successful aging.

Effectiveness of follow-up reminiscence therapy on autobiographical memory in pathological ageing.

The objective is to examine the effects of reminiscence therapy (RT) on total, episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimers disease (AD) groups, testing the effects of RT on different stages of autobiographical memory, and its effectiveness at follow-up. A sample composed of 43 aMCI (27 treatments, 16 controls) and 30 AD (15 treatments, 15 controls) subjects were evaluated with the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) test. The RT consisted of 10 sessions lasting 60 minutes each. Both groups, aMCI and AD, showed significant effects on overall autobiographical memory; aMCI showed significant main effects on episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in the treatment group, increasing scores in both cases. For AD, significant effects were observed on autobiographical episodic memory, showing an increase in the treatment group from Time 1 to follow-up; semantic memory showed a decrease in the control group from Time 1 to follow-up. Results show that RT implementation and follow-up are effective in increasing autobiographical memory in subjects with aMCI and AD.

The effects of healthy aging, amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease on recollection, familiarity and false recognition, estimated by an associative process-dissociation recognition procedure.

Given the uneven experimental results in the literature regarding whether or not familiarity declines with healthy aging and cognitive impairment, we compare four samples (healthy young people, healthy older people, older people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment - aMCI -, and older people with Alzheimers disease - AD -) on an associative recognition task, which, following the logic of the process-dissociation procedure, allowed us to obtain corrected estimates of recollection, familiarity and false recognition. The results show that familiarity does not decline with healthy aging, but it does with cognitive impairment, whereas false recognition increases with healthy aging, but declines significantly with cognitive impairment. These results support the idea that the deficits detected in recollection, familiarity, or false recognition in older people could be used as early prodromal markers of cognitive impairment.

The Effects of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion on Improving the Capacity to Adapt to Stress Situations in Elderly People Living in the Community

ABSTRACT Objectives: This study aimed to show the effectiveness of mindfulness and self-compassion therapy in improving coping ability and adaptation to stressful situations in the elderly.Methods: Forty-five elderly non-institutionalized adults were randomized to either treatment or a treatment waiting list. A pre- and post-treatment assessment was performed, consisting of the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS), Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS), and Coping Strategies Questionnaire. The program was developed over 10 sessions lasting 120 minutes each.Results: Analysis of variance for repeated measures showed significant differences in the time-group interaction for the treatment’s effectiveness in improving resilience, positive reappraisal and avoidance strategies, and decreasing anxiety, problem-solving coping, negative self-focus, overt emotional expression and religion.Conclusions: The mindfulness and self-compassion program is useful for improving resilience and coping strategies and reducing anxiety and stress levels in the elderly.

The effects of instrumental reminiscence on resilience and coping in elderly

OBJECTIVES Aging, as a stage of development is marked by major changes to which the subject must adapt. Instrumental reminiscence is based on recalling times one coped with stressful circumstances, and analyzing what it took to adapt in those situations. The purpose of the present study was to analyze the effectiveness of an instrumental reminiscent program to enhance adaptive capacity (problem-focused coping and emotion-focused) and resilience in older adults. METHOD Thirty participants noninstitutionalized conducted a pre and post assessment on a treatment consisting of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Brief Resilient Coping Scale and Stress Coping Questionnaire (CAE). The program was developed over 8 sessions of 60 min. RESULTS Repeated measures analysis of variance showed significant differences in time-group interaction for treatment effectiveness of resilience measures, problem-solving coping, positive reappraisal and avoidance coping that it increased, and on emotion-focused coping and overt emotional expression that gets decreased after treatment. CONCLUSION The instrumental reminiscence has proven to be a highly useful tool and is a potentially efficient way to improve adaptive capacity and resilience in the elderly to cope with adverse situations. Through non-pharmacological therapies, the quality of life has been improved, and subjects are provided with tools, strategies and skills that allow to achieve a satisfactory adaptation.

Differences in familiarity according to the cognitive reserve of healthy elderly people / Diferencias en familiaridad en función de la reserva cognitiva en ancianos sanos

Abstract This study examines the relationship between cognitive reserve and familiarity processes in recognition memory. We hypothesize that people with high cognitive reserve are able to better compensate in alternative information retrieval processes. Forty-five participants, divided into high and low cognitive reserve groups, conducted a recognition experiment where they were asked to discriminate between studied and non-studied words that varied in perceptual familiarity. The results indicated that participants were able to use perceptual familiarity to improve their level of recognition. More importantly, people with high cognitive reserve used familiarity better than those with low cognitive reserve. The results provide the first empirical evidence indicating that people with high cognitive reserve are more efficient at balancing recollection and familiarity processes, and thus maintain a better performance level than those with low cognitive reserve.

How we compensate for memory loss in old age: Adapting and validating the Memory Compensation Questionnaire (MCQ) for Spanish populations

Compensating entails using external strategies and mechanisms that help overcome or alleviate the decreasing memory function that comes with age. This study aims to adapt and validate the MCQ in the elderly Spanish population. A total of 403 elderly people aged between 65 and 92 in the city of Valencia (Spain) completed the questionnaire for the validation process. The factorial validity of the scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The result showed a first order five-factor model with 23 items that met the criteria for model fit according to multiple fit indices. As a general conclusion, the adaptation into Spanish provided a reliable and valid measure of compensation in the elderly population, and it could potentially be useful in both clinical practice and research in the elderly.

Associative and Implicit Memory Performance as a Function of Cognitive Reserve in Elderly Adults with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment

This study aims to analyze implicit and explicit memory performance as a function of cognitive reserve (CR) in a healthy control group (N = 39) and a mild cognitive impairment (MCI) group (N = 37). Both groups were subdivided into high and low cognitive reserve, and were asked to complete an explicit and implicit associative recognition tasks. The results showed that the control group was able to learn both tasks (η2 = .19, p < .0001), and the high CR group fared better (η2 = .06, p < .05). The MCI sample, conversely, was unable to learn the implicit relationship, and showed very little learning on the explicit association task. Participants diagnosed with MCI showed little plasticity in learning associations regardless of CR (η2 = .12, p < .01).