Cognitive training for elderly people without cognitive impairment: an occupational therapy Intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic1

Abstract

Objective: In view of the cognitive changes resulting from the normal aging process, this study aimed to compare the performance of routine and cognitive activities, quality of life and depressive symptoms of healthy elderly participants and non-participants of cognitive training applied by occupational therapists. Method: non-randomized clinical trial, matched by allocation into groups, with a quantitative approach of analytical character, longitudinal measured through standardized assessments: Geriatric Depression Scale, Revised-Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination, the Routine Tasks Inventory-Extended, Quality Assessment of life of the World Health Organization WHOQOL (BREF and OLD), and Instrument for the Assessment of Attitudes towards Aging, applied pre and post-intervention. There were 24 sessions, twice a week, lasting 60 minutes each. The intervention was based on the natural cognitive decline of aging, and covered analyzed activities and games. Results: case group (n=10), aged between 62 and 74 years (M=67.50, SD= 3.95): control group (n=11), aged between 61 and 73 years (M=68, SD= 4.12). The effect size calculation (Cohen’s d) revealed a training effect for the following variables: Depressive symptoms (1.12); Cognition: memory (0.82), visual-spatial function (0.55), fluency (0.56), MMSE (1.00) and ACE-R (0.98); Quality of life: sensory functioning (0.61); intimacy (0.51) and physical (0.50). No gain effects were observed for the other variables. Conclusion: the cognitive training was accompanied by an improvement of the participants in part of the standardized assessments, suggesting that the intervention favors the improvement of cognitive functions and quality of life and reduction of depressive symptoms of elderly participants.