Evaluating brain modularity benefits of an acting intervention: a discriminant-analysis framework.

Purpose: Aging is associated with a reduction in brain modularity as well as aspects of executive function, namely, updating, shifting, and inhibition. Previous research has suggested that the aging brain exhibits plasticity. Further, it has been hypothesized that broad-based intervention models may be more effective in eliciting overall gains in executive function than interventions targeted at specific executive skills (e.g., computer-based training). To this end, we designed a 4-week theater-based acting intervention in older adults within an RCT framework. We hypothesized that older adults would show improvements in brain modularity and aspects of executive function, ascribed to the acting intervention. Materials and methods: The participants were 179 adults from the community, aged 60-89 years and on average, college educated. They completed a battery of executive function tasks and resting state functional MRI scans to measure brain network modularity pre- and post-intervention. Participants in the active intervention group (n = 93) enacted scenes with a partner that involved executive function, whereas the active control group (n = 86) learned about the history and styles of acting. Both groups met two times/week for 75-min for 4 weeks. A mixed model was used to evaluate intervention effects related to brain modularity. Discriminant-analysis was used to determine the role of seven executive functioning tasks in discriminating the two groups. These tasks indexed subdomains of updating, switching, and inhibition. Discriminant tasks were subject to a logistic regression analysis to determine how post-intervention executive function performance interacted with changes in modularity to predict group membership. Results: We noted an increase in brain modularity in the acting group, relative to pre-intervention and controls. Performance on updating tasks were representative of the intervention group. However, post-intervention performance on updating did not interact with the observed increase in brain modularity to distinguish groups. Conclusion: An acting intervention can facilitate improvements in modularity and updating, both of which are sensitive to aging and may confer benefits to daily functioning and the ability to learn.

Can a Theater Acting Intervention Enhance Inhibitory Control in Older Adults? A Brain-Behavior Investigation.

Purpose: Studies of reactive and proactive modes of inhibitory control tend to show age-related declines and are accompanied by abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex. We explored which mode of inhibitory control would be more amenable to change and accrue greater benefits following engagement in a 4-week theater acting intervention in older adults. These gains were evaluated by performance on the AX-CPT task. We hypothesized that an increase in proactive control would relate to an increase in AY errors and a decrease in BX errors. In contrast, an increase in reactive control would be associated with a decrease in AY errors, no change in AY reaction time, and an increase in BX response time. Further, we posited that an increase in behavioral proactive control would accompany greater cue versus probe activity for previously identified regions in the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, an increase in behavioral reactive control would be accompanied by greater probe activation in these identified brain areas. Materials and Methods: The participants were 179 community-dwelling adults aged 60-89 years who were on average, college-educated. Participants were pseudo-randomly assigned to either an active-experiencing acting intervention condition (n = 93) or the active control condition (n = 86); participant assignment was subject to time of enrollment. Participants in both groups were trained by theater-actor researchers with expertise in acting interventions. In contrast to the active control participants who attended a course on theater acting, the acting-intervention group was required to consistently deploy proactive and reactive control mechanisms. Both groups met two times/week for 75-min for 4 weeks. Participant brain-behavioral performance on the AX-CPT task was evaluated prior to and after this four-week period. Results: No intervention effects were found in favor of proactive control. Behavioral evidence in favor of reactive control was weak. Brain-related benefits to reactive control was illustrated by greater probe-activation in Brodmann areas 6 and 8, relative to controls and pre-intervention. Conclusion: We found some evidence for improvements in reactive control via brain measures, attributed to engagement in the acting intervention.

Active Experiencing Training Improves Episodic Memory Recall in Older Adults.

Active experiencing (AE) is an intervention aimed at attenuating cognitive declines with mindfulness training via an immersive acting program, and has produced promising results in older adults with limited formal education. Yet, the cognitive mechanism(s) of intervention benefits and generalizability of gains across cognitive domains in the course of healthy aging is unclear. We addressed these issues in an intervention trial of older adults (N = 179; mean age = 69.46 years at enrollment; mean education = 16.80 years) assigned to an AE condition (n = 86) or an active control group (i.e., theatre history; n = 93) for 4 weeks. A cognitive battery was administered before and after intervention, and again at a 4-month follow-up. Group differences in change in cognition were tested in latent change score models (LCSM). In the total sample, several cognitive abilities demonstrated significant repeated-testing gains. AE produced greater gains relative to the active control only in episodic recall, with gains still evident up to 4 months after intervention. Intervention conditions were similar in the magnitude of gains in working memory, executive function and processing speed. Episodic memory is vulnerable to declines in aging and related neurodegenerative disease, and AE may be an alternative or supplement to traditional cognitive interventions with older adults.

Participatory arts for older adults: a review of benefits and challenges.

This article reviews the scientific literature on the enhancement of healthy aging in older adults through active participation in the arts. Methodologies and conclusions are described for studies of dance, expressive writing, music (singing and instrumental), theatre arts, and visual arts including documentation of mental/physical improvements in memory, creativity, problem solving, everyday competence, reaction time, balance/gait, and quality of life. In addition to these gains in measures of successful aging, the article also provides (in a Supplementary Appendix) some selected examples of arts engagement for remedial purposes. Finally, it offers suggestions for expanding inquiry into this underinvestigated corner of aging research.

Extending the reach of an evidence-based theatrical intervention.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: In Experiment 1, the authors investigated whether they could train retirement home activity directors with no previous experience in theatre to successfully execute an evidence-based 4-week theatre-arts intervention. In Experiment 2, they investigated whether an outside professional acting teacher who received only minimal training via e-mail and telephone could successfully execute the same intervention heretofore only carried out by the actor/director/professor who devised it. METHODS: A total of 115 participants (ages 68-94) in four different retirement homes were taught theatre arts either by their in-house activity director who had no formal training in theatre or a professional acting teacher recruited through a local community college. The intervention consisted of twice-weekly 70-min lessons for 4 weeks. After random assignment to experimental or waiting-list control groups, participants were given pre- and posttests on both functional and cognitive measures. RESULTS: Experiment 1 showed that activity directors were able to run this intervention and achieve significant results on the 28-item functional measure (Observed Tasks of Daily Living, Revised [OTDL-R]) as measured by a mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired-sample t tests (p < .001), and on one cognitive measure, Means-End Problem-Solving (MEPS), as measured by a multivariate ANOVA (MANCOVA) and follow-up univariate ANOVAs. Experiment 2 (outside acting teacher) used the identical measures and revealed significant results on the OTDL-R (p = .002), word recall, MEPS, and verbal fluency (η²(p) ranging from .28 to .59). CONCLUSIONS: This study addressed the feasibility of training multiple instructors of varying experience to administer this theatre-arts intervention. Previous iterations had all been administered by the professional actor/director/theatre professor who devised the program. These current results demonstrate that widespread administration of this short-term (4-week) evidence-based intervention is feasible.

An arts intervention for older adults living in subsidized retirement homes.

A theatrically based intervention was given to 122 older adults who took lessons twice a week for 4 weeks. The training consisted of multi-modal activities (cognitive-affective-physiological) typically employed in college acting classes. Comparison groups consisted of no-treatment controls and participants instructed in a different performing art, singing. Assessment of effectiveness was performed using a battery of 11 cognitive/affective test measures that included word recall, prose comprehension/recall, word generation, digit-span ability, and problem-solving. It was found that the acting group improved significantly from pretest to posttest over both other groups. Digit-span was the only measure that failed to improve. The gains were achieved despite the fact that no aspects of the intervention supplied specific training or practice on the test measures. Previous versions of the intervention with community-dwelling adults had produced similar findings but the current participants were older, less well-educated, and lived in subsidized, primarily low-income, retirement homes.

A short-term intervention to enhance cognitive and affective functioning in older adults.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to investigate the benefits of a short-term intervention for older adults that targeted cognitive functioning and quality of life issues important for independent living. METHOD: One hundred twenty-four community-dwelling participants (aged 60 to 86) took part in one of three study conditions: theater arts (primary intervention), visual arts (non-content-specific comparison group), and no-treatment controls. RESULTS: After 4 weeks of instruction, those given theater training made significantly greater gains than did no-treatment controls on both cognitive and psychological well-being measures. A comparison of theater and visual arts training showed fewer benefits in fewer areas for visual arts. DISCUSSION: The authors suggest reasons why various aspects of theater training appear to enhance healthy aging.