What impact does cognitive training have on an older adult's cognitive skills?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Interventions that train older adults and encourage them to use cognitive skills can preserve and even reverse some age-related cognitive declines. One study of participants in the Seattle Longitudinal Study examined the effects of cognitive training on cognitive development in older adulthood. Older adults were administered 51 hr worth of training sessions and then tested on two mental ability tests. Two thirds of adults showed gains in performance, and 40% of those who showed cognitive decline prior to the study returned to their level of functioning 14 years earlier. Training improved strategy use and performance on verbal memory, working memory, and short-term memory tasks. Most promising is that 7 years later, older adults who had received training scored higher on mental ability tests than their peers. Other research suggests that training improves measures of processing speed and fluid intelligence, and these improvements were retained over an 8-month period. Older adults' improvement with intervention is often similar to that of younger adults with gains in working memory task, sustained attention, and memory complaints no different from young adults.