research

NPR had an interesting story this morning on adults with dementia volunteering at a school in Cleveland. As of yet there are no research data on this specific program; however, it appears that older volunteers without dementia benefit from their volunteer experience in schools through increased social interaction and cognitive activity (see articles on Experience Corps).

The Psychological Society of the Pikes Peak Region sponsored a conference today titled "The Science of Change: Translating What Works in Therapy." Barry Duncan, Psy.D., co-director of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, challenged recent trends in the field of mental health that emphasize treatment methods over other factors responsible for psychotherapy outcome. From his years of experience as a practitioner and review of the literature, he has come to a few conclusions:

- the therapeutic alliance is more important for psychotherapy outcome than the theoretical orientation of the service provider (e.g., clients generally don't remember what brilliant techniques we use in therapy, but how well we build a relationship with them)

- evidence based treatments aren't "bad," but overemphasized in the field of mental health and should be used on a client-by-client basis (taking into consideration client characteristics, culture, and preferences)

- most of the outcome variance in psychotherapy is due to client/extratherapeutic factors (i.e., something that happens outside of the therapy hour that helps a client to change)

- therapeutic power does not come out of identifying what clients need, but in identifying their strengths and resources that can be put to use in reaching their goals (Dr. Duncan calls this "finding the heroic client," my clinical supervisor calls it "being curious")

- asking clients what they'd like to do to deal with their problems and asking for feedback on how they think they are progressing throughout therapy improves the quality and outcome of services

The UCCS Gerontology Center sponsors a seminar series for students, faculty, and community members. Today, David McCabe, Ph.D. of Colorado State University presented the results of a study on memory and executive functioning across the lifespan.

Dr. McCabe used the analogy, "age is to memory as time is to rust." Basically, age does not cause memory loss, rather memory loss is caused by some underlying variable (associated with age). A few hypotheses for why episodic memory (memory for events) decines with age include reduced working memory capacity, processing speed, executive function, and general fluid intelligence.

The findings of Dr. McCabe's study suggest that tests of executive function and working memory capacity measure a common construct, which he calls "Executive Attention." Executive attention was found to be more closely related to episodic memory than processing speed or general fluid intelligence, implying that problems with episodic memory are due to executive dysfunction in older adults.

The scientific study of "successful aging" is still relatively new and the precise ways in which individuals manage to thrive as older adults is not very well understood. Recently, the results from the first study on aging visual artists in New York City were released by the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The aim of the project was to document the survival skills and social support of aging artists in New York City's five boroughs. The study found that the artists in this sample rank high in life satisfaction, have high self-esteem as a person and an artist, communicate daily or weekly with other artists, and are very satisfied with their careers. The authors of the report made several recommendations for both redefining "work" and "old age" and policy changes that would improve the lives of this hardy group of seniors.

As a Research Assistant at Lighthouse International, I worked on a support group intervention study. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a telephone support group in reducing symptoms of depression in individuals caring for an older relative or friend with vision impairment, an often overlooked population.

I was the facilitator of the support group sessions and led two groups with five participants each. In the start-up phase of the project, I created many of the materials used in the program, which covered topics such as enhancing communication, dealing with emotional issues, and handling stressful situations. My colleagues and I presented the results of this study at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in August 2007.