Impact of Brain Exercise Programme on Older Adults’ Cognition
Keywords:
brain exercise, cognition, older adultsAbstract
Abstract
Objectives: To compare older adults’ cognition before and after receiving a brain exercise programme.
Design: One-group quasi-experimental research with a pre-test and a post-test.
Methodology: The participants, recruited via random sampling, were 30 older adults living in Bang Sai sub-district, Muaeng Chon Buri district, Chonburi province. Data collection was conducted from May to July 2018. The instruments consisted of 1) a demographic data form; 2) Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA); and 3) a six-week brain exercise programme. In the frst week, the brain exercise programme focused on educating the participants on dementia and its prevention. From the second to the sixth weeks, the programme engaged the participants in weekly three-hour sessions of brain-exercising activities and practices. The outcome of the programme was evaluated in the tenth week. The data were analysed using descriptive
statistics and paired t-test.
Results: After participating in the brain exercise programme, the older adults’ average cognition score was higher than that before the intervention (p < .001). Category-wise, the participants displayed signifcant cognitive improvement in visuospatial/executive, name recognition, concentration, and delayed recall areas (p = .007; p = .018; p = .005; and p = .008, respectively). However, no signifcant differences were found between their pre- and post-intervention mean scores on language use, abstraction, and orientation (p > .05).
Recommendations: The fndings of this preliminary study proved that this brain exercise programme could stimulate older adults’ cognition. However, it is recommended that the study be repeated and include a control group, so as to more accurately measure the effectiveness of the programme before applying it to older adults in general.
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