Impacto da estimulação cognitiva sobre o desempenho de idosos com demência de Alzheimer em tarefas de memória lógica e recordação livre

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Ageing is often associated with the decline of some cognitive abilities, especially memory, sometimes progressing to dementia. The current study aimed to evaluate the effects of a cognitive stimulation program on the development of elderly people with Alzheimers disease in tasks of logical memory and free recall. Sixteen elderly people were evaluated with the diagnosis of probable initial or mild Alzheimers disease. These people were being treated in the Elderly Center of the Brasilia University Hospital. They were randomly divided into two groups: experimental group with eight elderly who were submitted to the cognitive stimulation program and control group with eight elderly who were not submitted to these sessions. The program lasted four sessions and consisted of a sequencial workshop related to the theme Going for a walk in group to fish. This workshop consisted of verbal material being presented to the elderly several times to be recovered by free recall, followed by recognition. This recognition could be facilitated by contextual tips or pre-activation of the information requested. The technique of reminiscence was used to the learning of new information. The elderly people were evaluated before the program and one week after it. The results suggest that cognitive stimulation improves significantly (p<0,05) the development in tasks of logical short-term memory related to stimulations context. Besides that, the results suggest that propositional analysis produces significantly (p <0,007) better scores than the literal analysis of the logical memory test. Therefore, a very straight correction can indicate bigger deficits than the real ones. The cognitive stimulation also improves significantly (p<0,05) the development in tasks of free recall with lists containing words related to stimulations context. However the development of elderly people did not improve in lists with words containing semantic relations. This results show that the highest development of elderly people with Alzheimers disease occurs in tasks related to autobiographical context and these results also encourage the applicability of neuropsychological interventions for clinical purposes.

ASSUNTO(S)

memória neuropsychology psicologia memory, alzheimers disease cognitive stimulation neuropsicologia estimulação cognitiva demência de alzheimer

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