Improving Prospective Memory Performance in Community-dwelling Older Adults: Goal Management Training and Implementation Intentions.

Aim: The present study tested a compensatory executive intervention for prospective memory (goal management training) for the first time in older adults. Prospective memory (the ability to remember and execute a task in the future) declines with age, with significant implications for older adults' activities of daily living and quality of life. Prospective memory interventions have focused primarily on the retrospective component of prospective memory (e.g., implementation intentions). However, executive dysfunction is also implicated in age-related prospective memory decline.Methods: Community-dwelling older adults were randomly allocated to receive goal management training, implementation intentions or no intervention. Prospective memory was assessed before and after the intervention with a well-validated laboratory-based prospective memory measure. Results: Contrary to predictions, neither goal management training nor implementation intentions were successful at improving prospective memory in healthy older adults. Participants who received goal management training were more likely to have difficulty comprehending the intervention. Post-hoc analyses suggested implementation intentions improved prospective memory specifically for participants with poorer baseline prospective memory. Conclusions: These results represent important cautionary findings about the possible limitations of goal management training to improve prospective memory in older adults. Future research should also consider the role of baseline prospective memory ability in affecting response to compensatory intervention.

The Western Australia Olfactory Memory Test: Reliability and Validity in a Sample of Older Adults.

OBJECTIVE: The Western Australia Olfactory Memory Test (WAOMT) is a newly developed test designed to meet a need for a comprehensive measure of olfactory episodic memory (OEM) for clinical and research applications. METHOD: This study aimed to establish the psychometric properties of the WAOMT in a sample of 209 community-dwelling older adults. An independent sample of 27 test-naïve participants were recruited to assess test retest reliability (between 7 and 28 days). Scale psychometric properties were examined using item response theory methods, combined samples (final N = 241). Convergent validity was assessed by comparing performance on the WAOMT with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery of domains (verbal and visual episodic memory, and odor identification), as well as other neuropsychological skills. Based on previous literature, it was predicted that the WAOMT would be positively correlated with conceptually similar cognitive domains. RESULTS: The WAOMT is a psychometrically sound test with adequate reliability properties and demonstrated convergent validity with tests of verbal and episodic memory and smell identification. Patterns of performance highlight learning and memory characteristics unique to OEM (e.g., learning curves, cued and free recall). CONCLUSION: Clinical and research implications include streamlining future versions of the WAOMT to ease patient and administrative burden, and the potential to reliably detect early neuropathological changes in healthy older adults with nonimpaired OEM abilities.

Predicting therapy outcome in patients with early and late obsessive-compulsive disorder (EOCD and LOCD).

BACKGROUND: Increasing attention has been given to subtyping OCD with respect to different clinical profiles, response to drug treatments, comorbidity and age of onset. There are a number of studies looking at predictors of treatment outcome in OCD, but so far not for OCD subtypes. METHOD: Prediction of outcome after cognitive-behavioural therapy was evaluated in 63 inpatients with early obsessive-compulsive disorder (EOCD < or = 12 years of age) and 191 patients with late obsessive-compulsive disorder (LOCD > 15 years of age). RESULTS: For EOCD patients factors predicting a good outcome included high motivation and high initial Y-BOCS scores. Factors associated with a bad outcome were higher age at assessment, a longer duration of psychiatric inpatient treatment before assessment and a low level of social functioning (BSS). For LOCD patients living in a stable relationship, high motivation and completing treatment predicted a favourable therapy outcome, while a low level of psychological functioning (BSS) and a longer duration of inpatient psychiatric treatment before assessment were associated with an undesirable therapy outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Subtyping OCD patients according to age of onset seems to be a promising avenue towards improving and developing more specified treatment programs.