Elizabeth Dyer, Roberta Gray and Regula Robnett publish systematic review about interventions to prevent cognitive decline
UNE librarians Elizabeth Dyer, M.L.I.S., and Roberta Gray, M.L.S., and occupational therapy Professor Regula Robnett, Ph.D., OTR/L, collaborated with researchers from three other institutions to publish a review in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The article systematically identifies, appraises and summarizes research on the effects of behavioral interventions to prevent cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults. The research is based on the Six Dimensions of Wellness model that includes social, intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual and occupational domains.
The systematic review included 18 randomized controlled trials that studied interventions in the various domains, with physical wellness interventions most common and spiritual wellness interventions least common. Interventions in the intellectual dimension, such as computer training, represented the greatest percentage of statistically significant outcomes.
The study found that the number and variety of instruments used to measure cognition impeded the ability to combine data from different studies. The authors urge future researchers to use the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery to enable meta-analysis and to study frequency and dose of behavioral interventions to better understand the most effective ways to protect cognitive health in aging adults.