Executive process training in old adults: Long-term maintenance after 18 months

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Executive process training in old adults: Long-term maintenance after 18 months L. Bäckman1, L. Nyberg2, N. Renström3, P. Sandberg3* and A. Stigsdotter Neely3 1 Karolinska Institute, Aging Research Center, Sweden 2 Umeå University , Departments of Integrative Medical Biology and Radiation Sciences, Sweden 3 Umeå University , Department of Psychology, Sweden Executive functions are usually described as being part of a system for controlling, monitoring and coordinating information in working memory. Impairment of executive functioning has been proposed to be an important factor underlying cognitive decline in old age. In the present study we investigate whether training gain on three executive processes (inhibition, updating, and shifting) is maintained 18 months following training. Thirty older adults (age 61-78) participated in the study, 15 in a training group, and 15 in a control group, receiving no training between pre and post-test. The training group partook in 15 training sessions (three 45 min sessions/week for five weeks) with six tasks addressing the executive functions inhibition, shifting and updating. Eighteen months following post-test, 14 participants from the training group, and 9 from the control group, participated in a follow-up test session. The trained group improved more from pretest to post-test than the controls on the criterion task tapping updating (letter memory), and on a non-trained updating task similar to the criterion task, (digit memory). More importantly, these results were maintained 18 months later for both the criterion and the near transfer task, suggesting stability of improvements across time in select executive functions. Conference: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neurorehabilitation Citation: Bäckman L, Nyberg L, Renström N, Sandberg P and Stigsdotter Neely A (2010). Executive process training in old adults: Long-term maintenance after 18 months. Conference Abstract: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00137 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 30 Jun 2010; Published Online: 30 Jun 2010. * Correspondence: P. Sandberg, Umeå University, Department of Psychology, Umeå, Sweden, petra.sandberg@psy.umu.se Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers L. Bäckman L. Nyberg N. Renström P. Sandberg A. Stigsdotter Neely Google L. Bäckman L. Nyberg N. Renström P. Sandberg A. Stigsdotter Neely Google Scholar L. Bäckman L. Nyberg N. Renström P. Sandberg A. Stigsdotter Neely PubMed L. Bäckman L. Nyberg N. Renström P. Sandberg A. Stigsdotter Neely Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.