Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:10:02.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive Rehabilitation with Older Adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2015

Nancy A. Pachana ,
Bernice A. Marcopulos  and
Janet Leatham
Nancy A. Pachana*
Affiliation:
Massey University, New Zealand
Bernice A. Marcopulos
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, USA
Janet Leatham
Affiliation:
Massey University, New Zealand
*
School of Psychology, Massey University, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Get access

Abstract

The proportion of older adults seeking rehabilitation services are certain to rise as the population ages. Cognitive rehabilitation techniques can be successfully adapted and used with older adults with a range of clinical diagnoses. An understanding of cognitive changes which could be expected as a result of “normal” (non-disease-related) aging is essential for both assessment and treatment planning for this group. Age-related changes in attention, memory and executive functioning are briefly noted. Common cognitive sequelae of head-injury, depression and dementia are discussed, and useful assessment and rehabilitation strategies described. Case illustrations are used to illustrate major points.

Type
Articles
Information
The Australian Journal of Rehabilitation Counselling , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , 1998 , pp. 82 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albert, M. S., Duffy, F. H., & Naeser, M. A. (1987). Nonlinear changes in cognition and their neurophysiologic correlates. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41, 141–157.Google Scholar
Alexopoulos, G. S., Abrams, R. C., Young, R. C., & Shamoian, C. A. (1988). Cornell scale for depression in dementia. Biological Psychiatry, 23, 271–284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alexopoulas, G., Young, R. C., Meyers, B. S., Abrams, R. C., & Shamoian, G. A. (1988). Lateonset depression. Psychiatric Ciinics of North America, 11, 101–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altarriba, J. (1993). Cognition and culture: A cross-cultural approach to cognitive psychology. Advances in Psychology (Vol. 103). Amsterdam: North-Holland/Elsevier.Google Scholar
Anderson, Nicole D; Craik, Fergus I. M; Naveh-Benjamin, Moshe. (1998). The attentional demands of encoding and retrieval in younger and older adults: I. Evidence from divided attention costs. Psychology & Aging, 13, 405–423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anschultz, L., Camp, C. J., Markley, R. P., & Kramer, J. J. (1987). Remembering mnemonics: A 3-year follow-up on the effects of mnemonics training in elderly adults. Experimental Aging Research, 13, 141–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backman, L., & Forsell, Y. (1994). Episodic memory functioning in a community-based sample of old adults with major depression: Utilization of cognitive support. Journal of Abnormal Psychobgy, 103, 361–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birren, J. E., & Schaie, K. W. (Eds.) (1990). Handbook of the psychology of aging (3rd ed.). San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Boone, K.B., Lesser, I.M., Miller, B.L., Wohl, M., Berman, N., Lee, A. & Palmer, B. (1994). Cognitive functioning in a mildly to moderately depressed geriatric sample: Relationship to chronological age. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Ciinical Neuroscience, 6, 267–272.Google Scholar
Borrini, G., Dall'Ora, P., della Sala, S., Marinelli, L.et al. (1989). Autobiographical memory: Sensitivity to age and education of a standardized enquiry. Psychological Medicine, 19, 215–224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Butters, N., Albert, M.S., Sax, D.S., Miliotis, P.Nagode, J. & Sterste, A. (1983). The effect of verbal mediation on the pictorial memory of brain-damaged patients. Neuropsychologia, 21, 307–323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, A.J., McCosh, L.M., Reinken, J. & Allan, B.C. (1983). Dementia in old age and the need for services. Age and aging, 12, 11–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, M. C., Hasher, L., Connelly, S. L., & Zacks, R. T. (1995). Aging, distraction, and the benefits of predictable location. Psychology and Aging, 10, 427–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cavanaugh, J. C. (1989). The importance of awareness in memory aging. In Poon, L. W., Rubin, D. C., & Wilson, B. A. (Eds.), Everyday cognition in adulthood and late life (pp. 416–436). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corgiat, Mark D; Templer, Donald I; Newell, Terry C. (1989). The effects of presentation modality, task demand, and content structure on age-related memory differences for prose. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 29, 53–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cornelius, S. W., & Caspi, A. (1987). Everyday problem-solving in adulthood and old age. Psychology and Aging, 2, 144–153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Craik, F. I. M., Byrd, M., & Swanson, J. M. (1987). Patterns of memory loss in three elderly samples. Psychology and Aging, 2, 79–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummings, J. L. & Benson, D. F. (1992). Dementia: A clinical approach (2nd ed.). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Davis, P.E. & Mumford, S.J. (1984). Cued recall and the nature of the memory disorder in dementia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 383–386.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DesRosiers, G., Hodges, J. R., & Berrios, G. (1995). The neuropsychological differentiation of patients with very mild Alzheimer's disease and/or major depression. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 43, 1256–1263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filley, C.M & Cullum, C.M. (1994). Attention and vigilance functions in normal aging. Applied Neuropsychology, 1, 29–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fogel, B.S, & Duffy, J. (1994). Elderly patients. In Silver, J.M. & Yudofsky, S.C. (Eds.), Neuropsychiatry of traumatic brain injury. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 413–441.Google Scholar
Fox, L.S., Olin, J.T., Erblich, J., Ippen, C.G & Schneider, L.S. (1998). Severity of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease affects list learning using the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 13, 544–549.3.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giambra, L.M. (1997). Sustained attention and aging: Overcoming the decrement? Experimental Aging Research, 23, 145–161.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilinsky, A. S., Ehrlich, M-F., & Craik, F. I. M. (1993). Aging and cognitive function: Crosscultural studies. In Izawa, C. (Ed.), Cognitive psychology applied (pp. 225–237). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C., Mitchell, R. G., & Riordan, J. (1981). Ward orientation training with psychogeriatric patients. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 6, 96–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grigsby, J., Kaye, K., Baxter, J., Shetterly, S.M & Hamman, R.F. (1998). Executive cognitive abilities and functional status among community-dwelling older persons in the San Luis Valley Health and Aging Study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 46, 590–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grigsby, J., Kaye, K. & Robbins, L.J. (1995). Behavioral disturbance and impairment of executive functions among the elderly. Archives of Gerontology & Geriatrics, 21, 167–177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanley, I. G. (1981). The use of signposts and active training to modify ward disorientation in elderly patients. Journal of Behavoir Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 12, 241–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hart, R.P., Wade, J.B., Calabrese, V.P. & Colenda, C.C. (1998). Vigilance performance in Parkinson's disease and depression. Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology, 20, 111–117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartlage, S., Alloy, L. B., Vazquez, C., & Dykmen, B. (1993). Automatic and effortful processing in depression. Psychological Bulletin, 13, 247–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J.R. (1997). Effectiveness of memory notebooks upon problematic behavior of residents with Alzheimer's disease. Physical & Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics, 15, 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorm, A.F., Korten, A.E., & Henderson, A.S. (1987). The prevalence of dementia: A quantitative integration of the literature. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia, 76, 465–479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kesslak, J.P., Nackoul, K., & Sandman, C.A. (1997). Memory training for individuals with Alzheimer's disease improves name recall. Behavioural Neurology, 10, 137–142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kibby, M.Y., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. & Long, C.J. (1998). Ecological validity of neuropsychological tests: Focus on the California Verbal Learning Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 13, 523–534.Google ScholarPubMed
King, N.S. (1996). Emotional, neuropsychological, and organic factors: Their use in the prediction of persisting postconcussion symptoms after moderate and mild head injuries. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 61, 75–81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, D.A., Cox, C., Lyness, J.M, Conwell, Y. & Caine, E.D. (1998). Quantitative and qualitative differences in the verbal learning performance of elderly depressives and healthy controls. Journal of the international Neuropsychological Society, 4, 115–126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kliegl, R., Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1989). Testing the limits and the study of adult age differences in cognitive plasticity of a mnemonic skill. Developmental Psychology, 25, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotler-Cope, S. & Camp, C. J. (1990). Memory interventions. In Lovelace, E. A. (Ed.), Aging and cognition: Mental processes, sel/-au/areness and interventions. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Kraus, J.F & Sorenson, S.B. (1994). Epidemiology. In Silver, J.M., Yudofsky, S.C. (Eds.), Neuropsychiatry of traumatic brain injury, (pp.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 3–41.Google Scholar
Langley, L.K., Overmier, J.B., Knopman, D.S., & Prod'Homme, M.M. (1998). Inhibition and habituation: Preserved mechanisms of attentional selection in aging and Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology, 12, 353–366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larrabee, G. J., Youngjohn, J. R., Sudilovsky, A., & Crook, T. H. (1993). Accelerated forgetting in Alzheimer-type dementia. journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychohgy, 15, 713–712.Google ScholarPubMed
Levin, H.S., Benston, A.L., & Grossman, R.C. (1982). Neurobehavioral consequences of closed head injury. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lyness, J. M., Cox, C., Curry, J., Conwell, Y., King, D. A., & Caine, E. D. (1995). Older age and the underreporting of depressive symptoms. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 43, 216–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacKay, D.G. & Abrams, L. (1996). Language, memory, and aging: Distributed deficits and the structure of new-versus-old connections. In Birren, J. E. & Schaie, K.W. (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (4th ed.). San Diego: Academic Press, 251–265.Google Scholar
Marcopulos, B. A., & Graves, R. E. (1990). Antidepressant effect on memory in depressed older persons. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 12, 655–663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDougall, Graham J. (1995). Metamemory and depression in cognitively impaired elders. Nursing Research, 44, 306–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. & Morris, R. (1993). The psychology of dementia. Chichester, UK: Wiley.Google Scholar
Miller, J.D. & Pentland, B. (1989). The factors of age, alcohol, and multiple injury in patients with mild and moderate head injury. In Hoff, J.T, Anderson, TE., & Cole, T.M. (Eds.), Mild to moderate head injury. Boston: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Murphy, M. D., Sanders, R. E., Gabriesheski, O. O., & Schmitt, F. A. (1981). Metamemory in the aged. Journal of Gerontology, 36, 185–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pachana, N. A., Gallagher, D., & Thompson, L. W. (1992). Assessment of depression. In Lawton, M. P. & Teresi, J. A. (Vol. Eds.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics: Vol. 14. Focus on assessment techniques (pp. 234–256). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Palmer, B.W., Boone, K.B., Lesser, I.M., Wohl, M.A., Berman, N. & Miller, B. (1996). Neuropsychologicl deficits among older depressed patients with predominantly psychological or vegetative symptoms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 41, 17–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parkin, A. J., & Lawrence, A. (1994). A dissociation in the relation between memory tasks and frontal lobe tests in the normal elderly. Neuropsychologia, 32, 15323–1532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearlson, G. D., Rabins, P. V., Kim, V. S., Speedie, L. J., Moberg, P. J., Burns, A., & Bascom, M. J. (1989). Structural brain CT changes and cognitive deficits in elderly depressives with and without reversible dementia (?pseudodementia?). Psychological Medicine, 19, 573–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poon, L. W. (1985). Differences in human memory and aging: Nature of causes and clinical implications. In Birren, J. E. & Schaie, K. W. (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (2nd ed.) (pp. 427–462). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Poon, L. W. (1992). Toward an understanding of cognitive functioning in geriatric depression. International Psychogeriatrics, 4 (Suppl. 2), 41–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, D.C.; Rahhal, T.A & Poon, L.W. (1998). Things learned in early adulthood are remembered best. Memory & Cognition, 26, 3–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salthouse, Timothy A. (1990). Working memory as a processing resource in cognitive aging. Developmental Review, 10, 101–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salthouse, T. A., Mitchell, D. R. D., Skovronek, E., & Babcock, R. L. (1989). Effects of adult age and working memory on reasoning and spatial abilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology:Learning, Memory and Cognition, 15, 507–516.Google ScholarPubMed
Scogin, F., & Bienias, J. L. (1988). A three-year follow-up of older adult participants in a memory-skills training program. Psychology and Aging, 3, 334–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaie, K.W., & Willis, S. L. (1986). Can decline in adult intellectual functioning be reversed? Developmental Psychology, 22, 223–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simone, P.M. & Baylis, G.C. (1997). The role of attention in a spatial memory task in Alzheimer disease patients. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 11, 140–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stankov, L. (1988). Aging, attention, and intelligence. Psychology and Aging, 3, 59–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Statistics New Zealand. (1995). New Zealand Now: 65 Plus. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand.Google Scholar
Troyer, A.K, Graves, R.E, & Cullum, C.M. ( 1994). Executive functioning as a mediator of the relationship between age and episodic memory in healthy aging. Aging Neuropsychohgy & Cognition 1, 45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderploeg, R.D., Schinka, J.A. & Retzlaff, P. (1994). Relationships between measures of auditory verbal learning and executive functioning. Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology, 16, 243–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhaeghen, P., Vandenbroucke, A., & Dierckx, V. (1998). Growing slower and less accurate: Adult age differences in time-accuracy functions for recall and recognition from episodic memory. Experimental Aging Research, 24, 3–19.Google ScholarPubMed
Weingartner, H., Cohen, R. M., & Bunney, W. E. (1982). Memory-learning impairments in progressive dementia and depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 135–136.Google ScholarPubMed
West, R. L. (1988). Prospective memory and aging. In Gruneberg, M.M., Morris, P.E., & Sykes, R.N. (Eds.), Practical aspects of memory: Current research and issues (Vol. 2, pp. 119–125). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
West, R. L. (1989). Planning practical memory training for the aged. In Poon, L. W., Rubin, D. C., & Wilson, B. A. (Eds.), Everyday cognition in adulthood and late life (pp. 573–597). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, S. L. (1989). Cognitive training: Which old dogs leam what nicks?. In Poon, L. W., Rubin, D. C., & Wilson, B. A. (Eds.), Everyday cognition in adulthood and late life (pp. 545–569). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, S. L. & Schaie, K. W. (1988). Gender differences in spatial ability in old age: Longitudinal and intervention findings. Sex Roles, 18, 189–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodruff-Pak, D. S. (1997). The neuropsychology of aging. Maiden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yesavage, J. A., Brink, T. L., & Rose, T. L. (1983). Development and validation of a geriatric depression scale: A preliminary report. Journal of Psychiatric Residents, 17, 37–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar