Abstract
There is growing interest in the adoption of lifestyle interventions to remediate age-related declines in memory functioning and physical and psychological health among older adults. This study aimed to investigate whether a Chinese Chan-based lifestyle intervention, the Dejian Mind-Body Intervention (DMBI), leads to positive benefits for memory functioning in older adults. Fifty-six adults aged 60 years or older with subjective memory complaints (SMC) were randomly assigned to receive the DMBI or a control intervention (i.e., a conventional memory intervention; MI) once a week for 10 weeks; 48 of the adults completed the intervention. Participants’ verbal and visual memory functioning before and after the intervention were compared. In addition, changes in the participants’ subjective feelings about their memory performance and physical and psychological health after the intervention were examined. The results showed that both the DMBI and MI resulted in significant improvements in both verbal and visual memory functioning and that the extent of the improvements was correlated with participants’ level of performance at baseline. In addition, compared to the MI group, the DMBI group had significantly greater improvements in subjective physical and psychological health after the intervention. In summary, the present findings support the potential of the DMBI as an alternative lifestyle intervention for improving memory functioning, subjective physical and psychological health of older adults with SMC.
Highlights
Subjective memory complaints (SMC) are common among older adults
These findings provided preliminary support for the Dejian Mind-Body Intervention (DMBI) as an effective lifestyle intervention to attenuate declining memory functioning in older adults
The major objectives of the present study were to investigate the effects of the 12-week DMBI compared to a control intervention on objective memory performance and subjective memory functioning and health status in older adults
Summary
Subjective memory complaints (SMC) are common among older adults. The presence of SMC is often related to increased psychological distress, reduced mental health well-being, lower quality of life, and increased healthcare costs (Mol et al, 2007; Waldorff et al, 2009; Ito et al, 2013; Steinberg et al, 2013). One study showed that older adults had improvements in verbal memory that lasted 6 months after learning mnemonic and problemsolving strategies compared to those in a no-treatment control condition (Tsai et al, 2008), suggesting the presence of a relatively long-lasting effect. Some studies have found positive effects of memory interventions on improving older adults’ self-perception of memory capabilities and psychological wellness (Floyd and Scogin, 1997; Valentijn et al, 2005; Belleville et al, 2006). These findings confirm the potential of memory interventions as an effective tool for enhancing memory functioning and psychological health in healthy older adults
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