Difficulties in the execution of goal-directed behaviours, and particularly their prospective memory component, can arise in ageing and have important consequences for autonomy. The first objective of this article is to present an intervention that trained older individuals who reported prospective memory or goal-directed behaviour problems to use "implementation intentions". This technique, which has been shown to improve different aspects of goal-directed behaviour enactment, consists of establishing a mental (verbal and/or visual) link between the action that must be performed and the situation in which it must be performed. Our programme proposes exercises of progressively increasing difficulty that are targeted at daily life situations. Our second objective was to test the programme in small groups of older adults. Preliminary data regarding the programme's feasibility and its initial efficacy show a significant improvement in the main outcome measure, a questionnaire assessing goal-directed behaviours in everyday life. The participants also reported being significantly less bothered by their difficulties, although there were no significant changes in quality of life, self-esteem, anxiety or depression. Two participants with different psychological profiles, who benefited differently from the intervention, are then presented in more detail

Implementation intentions have been shown to be a very effective strategy in improving prospective memory in older adults. However, their efficacy in improving inhibition has never been assessed in aging. We thus examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in a prospective memory task and an inhibition task in 87 older participants. Following a crossover design, half of the participants were instructed to form an implementation intention in the prospective memory task, the other half in the inhibition task. The moderating role of working memory, visualization and verbalization habits, and impulsivity were also assessed. Regression analyses revealed that for both tasks, participants benefited from implementation intentions but only if they were used to using visual strategies in daily life. The efficacy of implementation intentions was not moderated by working memory, impulsivity, or the use of verbal strategies in everyday life. Copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

tImplementation intentions are an effective strategy for improving prospective memory in older adults.However, their efficacy has never been assessed in older individuals with cognitive problems (i.e., indi-viduals with subjective memory complaints or objective memory impairments). Furthermore, althoughmost authors consider implementation intentions to depend on automatic processes, some studies haveshown the necessity of residual preserved controlled processes for implementation intentions to beefficient. We examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in prospective memory in 45 olderparticipants consulting a memory clinic. Half of the participants were instructed to form an implemen-tation intention, the other half receiving standard instructions. Analyses showed that working memorymoderated the efficacy of implementation intentions, which were efficient only in individuals with bet-ter working memory. These results corroborate the claim that a minimal level of cognitive resources isrequired for the technique, although implementation intentions might depend principally on automaticprocesses

Implementation intentions, a strategy in which a strong link is created between a cue and a to-be-performed action, have been shown to be efficacious in improving self-regulation. The relative efficacy of verbal and visual implementation intentions, however, has yet to be determined. Implementation intentions have also been shown to be inefficacious in participants with high impulsivity, specifically in individuals who reported having a high tendency to commit rash or regrettable actions as a result of intense affect (high urgency). Nevertheless, previous studies did not assess whether the individuals were in an emotional context at the time of the experiment. In the current study, we compared different forms of implementation intentions (verbal/visual/combined verbal-visual) on a computerized inhibition task while assessing impulsivity and emotional activation. The results showed that all types of implementation intentions improved inhibition performances significantly in participants with high urgency, but only when their emotional activation was low. There was no difference between the three types of implementation intentions.

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