Exploring the Effects of a Golf Program on Psychological and Social Wellbeing for People With Dementia, Carers, and Staff.

There is a paucity of evidence regarding the effects of sport and physical activity on wellbeing in dementia. The present study is the first known study to involve golf with this population. People with dementia (n = 10) and carers (n = 5) participated in a 6-week golf program, facilitated by golf center staff (n = 3). Multiple avenues of data collection were utilized and were subject to thematic analysis. Five central themes were identified: emotion, respite, losing the "dementia" label, friendship/camaraderie, and improving relationships. Underlying subthemes were also identified, while potential links between themes were highlighted. Themes were also considered in terms of which participants (person with dementia, carer, and staff) provided evidence for each theme. This study presents preliminary support for the role of golf to enhance the psychological and social wellbeing of people with early stages of dementia, carers, and staff. Potential mechanisms and future research are discussed.

Reduced Specificity in Episodic Future Thinking in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one of the most common disorders following trauma, has been associated with a tendency to remember past personal memories in a nonspecific, overgeneral way. The present study investigated whether such a bias also applies to projections of future personal events. Trauma survivors (N = 50) generated brief descriptions of imagined future experiences in response to positive and negative cues in a future-based Autobiographical Memory Test. Survivors with PTSD imagined fewer specific future events in response to positive, but not to negative, cues, compared to those without PTSD. This effect was independent of comorbid major depression. Reduced memory specificity in response to positive cues was related to appraisals of foreshortened future and permanent change. Training to enhance specificity of future projections may be helpful in PTSD and protect against potentially toxic effects of autobiographical memory overgenerality.