Older Adults' Memory for Verbally Presented Medical Information

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that patients typically have difficulty remembering information presented during healthcare consultations. This study examined how older adults learn and remember verbally presented medical information. Healthy older adults were tested for recall in experimental and field settings. Participants viewed a five-minute video of a simulated healthcare consultation and completed free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory tasks. Differences in performance were observed between older and younger adults in the experimental condition on all memory tasks and in the field condition on the cued recall task; older adults tended to remember less information than younger adults. Though older adults had difficulty spontaneously recalling medical information, they were able to take advantage of cues to access verbally learned information. Findings of this study highlight the importance of developing and implementing measures to maximize the abilities of older adults to learn and remember important medical information communicated by healthcare providers.