Anxiety Reduction Through Close Communication with Robotic Media in Dementia Patients and Healthy Older Adults

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the recent research on android robotic media with a focus on its effects on older adults and to present a discussion on the implications of the experimental results. Social isolation of older adults is a leading issue in healthcare. Patients with dementia experience symptoms, such as agitation, which can result in increasing care burden. Android robotic media have been shown to provide a feeling of safety and communication support to older adults. In previous case studies, an increase in prosocial behaviors was observed in participants with dementia; however, the media effects needed to be measured by assessment scales. The current results indicate the effects of robotic media on dementia symptoms, especially the decrease in patients’ anxiety. As demonstrated in another experiment, anxiety reduction can also be expected in healthy older adults; however, certain conditions may be required for both healthy older adults and those with dementia. Key factors for the media effect, namely, dementia type, user’s personality, and personalized dialogue are taken into consideration for the further development of robotic systems. Additionally, we further discuss the significance of long-term data collection, especially from the early life stages because teleoperation or autonomous systems are expected to utilize information that can affect the effect of robotic media.

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Five-Year Change in Body Mass Index Predicts Conversion to Mild Cognitive Impairment or Dementia Only in APOE ɛ4 Allele Carriers

Journal of Alzheimer s Disease ◽

10.3233/jad-201360 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Kylie R. Kadey ◽

John L. Woodard ◽

Allison C. Moll ◽

Kristy A. Nielson ◽

J. Carson Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Body Mass Index ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Body Mass ◽

Carrier Status ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

E4 Allele ◽

Lifestyle Risk

Background: Body mass index (BMI) has been identified as an important modifiable lifestyle risk factor for dementia, but less is known about how BMI might interact with Apolipoprotein E ɛ4 (APOE ɛ4) carrier status to predict conversion to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction between APOE ɛ4 status and baseline (bBMI) and five-year BMI change (ΔBMI) on conversion to MCI or dementia in initially cognitively healthy older adults. Methods: The associations between bBMI, ΔBMI, APOE ɛ4 status, and conversion to MCI or dementia were investigated among 1,289 cognitively healthy elders from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) database. Results: After five years, significantly more carriers (30.6%) converted to MCI or dementia than noncarriers (17.6%), p < 0.001, OR = 2.06. Neither bBMI (OR = 0.99, 95%CI = 0.96–1.02) nor the bBMI by APOE interaction (OR = 1.02, 95%CI = 0.96–1.08) predicted conversion. Although ΔBMI also did not significantly predict conversion (OR = 0.90, 95%CI = 0.78–1.04), the interaction between ΔBMI and carrier status was significant (OR = 0.72, 95%CI = 0.53–0.98). For carriers only, each one-unit decline in BMI over five years was associated with a 27%increase in the odds of conversion (OR = 0.73, 95%CI = 0.57–0.94). Conclusion: A decline in BMI over five years, but not bBMI, was strongly associated with conversion to MCI or dementia only for APOE ɛ4 carriers. Interventions and behaviors aimed at maintaining body mass may be important for long term cognitive health in older adults at genetic risk for AD.

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Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study

Linguistics Vanguard ◽

10.1515/lingvan-2018-0029 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (s2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Müller-Feldmeth ◽

Katharina Ahnefeld ◽

Adriana Hanulíková

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Time Course ◽

Healthy Adults ◽

Control Group ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Dementia Patients ◽

Age Related

AbstractWe used self-paced reading to examine whether stereotypical associations of verbs with women or men as prototypical agents (e.g. the craftsman knits a sweater) are activated during sentence processing in dementia patients and healthy older adults. Effects of stereotypical knowledge on language processing have frequently been observed in young adults, but little is known about age-related changes in the activation and integration of stereotypical information. While syntactic processing may remain intact, semantic capacities are often affected in dementia. Since inferences based on gender stereotypes draw on social and world knowledge, access to stereotype information may also be affected in dementia patients. Results from dementia patients (n = 9, average age 86.6) and healthy older adults (n = 14, average age 79.5) showed slower reading times and less accuracy in comprehension scores for dementia patients compared to the control group. While activation of stereotypical associations of verbs was visible in both groups, they differed with respect to the time-course of processing. The effect of stereotypes on comprehension accuracy was visible for healthy adults only. The evidence from reading times suggests that older adults with and without dementia engage stereotypical inferences during reading, which is in line with research on young adults.

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Longitudinal impact and effects of booster sessions in a cognitive training program for healthy elderly

10.31234/osf.io/uqgdw ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lucas Matias Felix ◽

Marcela Mansur Alves ◽

Mariana Teles ◽

Laura Jamison ◽

Hudson Golino

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Training ◽

Passive Control ◽

Control Group ◽

Longitudinal Impact ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Booster Sessions ◽

Experimental Group

This paper reports the results from a three-years follow-up study to access the long-term efficacy of a cognitive training for healthy older adults and investigates the effects of booster sessions on the cognitive performance of the participants using an innovative analytical approach from information theory. Design: semi-randomized quasi-experimental controlled design. Participants: 50 healthy older adults, (M = 73.3, SD = 7.77) were assigned into an experimental (N = 25; Mean age = 73.9; SD = 8.62) and a passive control group (N = 25; mean age = 72.9; SD = 6.97). Instruments: six subtests of WAIS and two episodic memory tasks. Procedures: the participants were assessed in four occasions: after the end of the original intervention, pre-booster sessions (three years after the original intervention), immediately after the booster sessions and three months after the booster sessions. Results: the repeated measures ANOVA showed that two gains reported in the original intervention were identified in the follow-up: Coding (F(1, 44) = 11.79, MSE = 0.77, p = .001, ηˆG2 = .084) and Picture Completion (F(1, 47) = 10.01, MSE = 0.73, p = .003, ηˆG2 = .060). After the booster sessions, all variables presented a significant interaction between group and time favorable to the experimental group (moderate to high effect sizes). To compare the level of cohesion of the cognitive variables between the groups, an entropy-based metric was used. The experimental group presented a lower level of cohesion in three of the four measurement occasions, suggesting a differential impact of the intervention with immediate and short-term effects, but without long-term effects.

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The Long-Term Efficacy of Working Memory Training in Healthy Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 22 Randomized Controlled Trials

The Journals of Gerontology Series B ◽

10.1093/geronb/gbaa077 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 75 (8) ◽

pp. e174-e188

Author(s):

Jianhua Hou ◽

Taiyi Jiang ◽

Jiangning Fu ◽

Bin Su ◽

Hao Wu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Cochrane Library ◽

Memory Training ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Randomized Controlled Studies

Abstract Objectives The long-lasting efficacy of working memory (WM) training has been a controversial and still ardently debated issue. In this meta-analysis, the authors explored the long-term effects of WM training in healthy older adults on WM subdomains and abilities outside the WM domain assessed in randomized controlled studies. Method A systematic literature search of PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, ProQuest, clinicaltrials.gov, and Google Scholar was conducted. Random-effects models were used to quantitatively synthesize the existing data. Results Twenty-two eligible studies were included in the meta-analysis. The mean participant age ranged from 63.77 to 80.1 years. The meta-synthesized long-term effects on updating were 0.45 (95% confidence interval = 0.253–0.648, <6 months: 0.395, 0.171–0.619, ≥6 months: 0.641, 0.223–1.058), on shifting, 0.447 (0.246–0.648, <6 months: 0.448, 0.146–0.75, ≥6 months: 0.446, 0.176–0.716); on inhibition, 0.387 (0.228–0.547, <6 months: 0.248, 0.013–0.484, ≥6 months: 0.504, 0.288–0.712); on maintenance, 0.486 (0.352–0.62, <6 months: 0.52, 0.279–0.761, ≥6 months: 0.471, 0.31–0.63). Discussion The results showed that WM training exerted robust long-term effects on enhancing the WM system and improving processing speed and reasoning in late adulthood. Future studies are needed to use different tasks of the same WM construct to evaluate the WM training benefits, to adopt more ecological tasks or tasks related to daily life, to improve the external validity of WM training, and to identify the optimal implementation strategy for WM training.

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Working Memory Training for Healthy Older Adults: The Role of Individual Characteristics in Explaining Short- and Long-Term Gains

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnhum.2017.00099 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Erika Borella ◽

Elena Carbone ◽

Massimiliano Pastore ◽

Rossana De Beni ◽

Barbara Carretti

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Individual Characteristics ◽

Working Memory Training ◽

Memory Training ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Short And Long Term

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Cognitive training-induced short-term functional and long-term structural plastic change is related to gains in global cognition in healthy older adults: a pilot study

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnagi.2015.00014 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Amit Lampit ◽

Harry Hallock ◽

Chao Suo ◽

Sharon L. Naismith ◽

Michael Valenzuela

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Cognitive Training ◽

Short Term ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Structural Plastic ◽

Global Cognition ◽

Plastic Change

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Cognitive aging and verbal labeling in continuous visual memory

Memory & Cognition ◽

10.3758/s13421-020-01043-3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 48 (7) ◽

pp. 1196-1213

Author(s):

Alicia Forsberg ◽

Wendy Johnson ◽

Robert H. Logie

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Aging ◽

Visual Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Age Groups ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Age Related

Abstract The decline of working memory (WM) is a common feature of general cognitive decline, and visual and verbal WM capacity appear to decline at different rates with age. Visual material may be remembered via verbal codes or visual traces, or both. Souza and Skóra, Cognition, 166, 277–297 (2017) found that labeling boosted memory in younger adults by activating categorical visual long-term memory (LTM) knowledge. Here, we replicated this and tested whether it held in healthy older adults. We compared performance in silence, under instructed overt labeling (participants were asked to say color names out loud), and articulatory suppression (repeating irrelevant syllables to prevent labeling) in the delayed estimation paradigm. Overt labeling improved memory performance in both age groups. However, comparing the effect of overt labeling and suppression on the number of coarse, categorical representations in the two age groups suggested that older adults used verbal labels subvocally more than younger adults, when performing the task in silence. Older adults also appeared to benefit from labels differently than younger adults. In younger adults labeling appeared to improve visual, continuous memory, suggesting that labels activated visual LTM representations. However, for older adults, labels did not appear to enhance visual, continuous representations, but instead boosted memory via additional verbal (categorical) memory traces. These results challenged the assumption that visual memory paradigms measure the same cognitive ability in younger and older adults, and highlighted the importance of controlling differences in age-related strategic preferences in visual memory tasks.

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