Abstract
Assess the effect of a Health Education (HE) program on cognition, mood and functional capacity of participants in a University of The Third Age (U3A). Controlled clinical trial. The HE Program consisted of 10 sessions with group dynamics, including orientations on disease prevention and cognitive stimulation exercises, lasting four months. Intervention Group (IG) n=13; and Control Group (CG) n=15. All were assessed at the start and end of the study, using Addenbrook´s Cognitive Examination-Revised (ACE-R), Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventory (BDI/BAI) and Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Significant improvements were observed for the IG when comparing the total ACE-R score (p=0.001) and memory domain (p=0.011) before and after the intervention. For the CG, improvement was found in the memory domain only (p=0.027). a HE intervention program benefits the improvement in cognitive performance, particularly the memory of adults and active elderly who participated in a U3A.
Highlights
The number of older people is increasing very fast in the world, as a result of high the birth rates in the past, and the enhanced life expectation
No intergroup differences were found at baseline for the variables studied, except for the total BAI score, which was higher for the Intervention Group (IG)
No differences were found for the other variables (BAI, Functional Independence Measure (FIM), MMSE) and they have not been displayed in the table
Summary
The number of older people is increasing very fast in the world, as a result of high the birth rates in the past, and the enhanced life expectation. Examples of actions in that sense are strategies like health education, widely implemented in contexts like universities open to the elderly, granting favorable conditions to improve anxiety and depression symptoms, besides enhancing individuals’ cognitive and functional ability[6,7]. Considering that: the educational actions are mostly developed in a traditional way; that the evaluation of the impact of HE programs usually is in terms quality of life, autonomy, citizenship, participation and social interaction[6,13,14]; and that this interventions do not consider the possible improvements on cognition, mood and functional ability; there is a lack of knowledge concerning the impact of a participative HE program on this variables
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