Cognitive Training: Strategy for Improving Mental Health of Elderly Inmates Living in Old Age Homes across Delhi, India

Abstract

Interindividual variability in cognitive function is attributed to biological, psychological, health-related, environmental, and lifestyle factors. The present study is to examine the beneficial effects of lifestyle and environmental factors on the cognitive ability after social and cognitive intervention residing in old age homes across Delhi, India. The elderly aged 60 years and above were randomly selected and a 21-day workshop of 90 min was conducted at each facility. Of the 89 inmates, 64 of them participated regularly in the workshop. Mini-Mental State Examination test and Mini-Cog test were conducted before and after the workshop. A Poisson regression model was fitted to assess the key determinants on the improvement of cognitive function. According to the fitted model, higher level of improvement was observed among the female (95% confidential interval [CI] 0.26–1.19; SE = 0.24) participants. Participants which had the lower level of cognitive impairment showed highly significant improvement in cognitive performance (95% CI 0.14–0.44; SE = 0.08) whereas physically active participants showed a negative association with improvement in cognitive performance (95% CI 1.58–0.26; SE = 0.34). Cognitive training helped in improving the mental health of elderly population. The notable distinction between the institutions is that in the institution in which the residents interacted the most with each other showed higher levels of improvement. The most significant factor found to be associated with cognitive improvement of the participants was their present level of cognitive impairment; it was observed that those with the least cognitive impairment benefitted the most from the intervention program. Hence, an early detection and intervention could be beneficial.