Effects of Cognitive Group Iterventions on Depression and Cognition Among Elderly Women in Long-Term Care

Abstract

The effects of cognitive-behavioral group therapy and focused visual imagery group therapy on cognition and depression in frail women residing in nursing homes were examined.' Twenty-four (24) women participated in a 24-week protocol of cognitive- behavioral group therapy and twenty-one (21) in a protocol of visual imagery group therapy of similar duration. Eleven (11) women in a comparison condition participated in a 24 week series of educational discussion group sessions. Data on cognition and depression are reported for four time points: 4 weeks before treatment initiation, 8 and 20 weeks after treatment initiation, and 4 weeks after treatment termination. Subjects in the cognitive-behavioral and visual imagery groups experienced a significant improvement in cognition over the duration of the study, while subjects in the educational discussion groups did not. There was no effect for any of the interventions on depression. This lack of effect may indicate the tenacity of depression among female nursing home residents and.

Psychological well-being in retirement: The effects of personal and gendered contextual resources.

“…Perceiving care as obligatory and investing longer care hours has, in turn, been linked to increased stress (Chappell & Reid, 2002). In line with this reasoning, the chronic condition of a spouse was shown to affect women’s but not men’s adaptation to retirement (Haug, Belgrave, & Jones, 1992). We therefore expect a spouse’s preretirement health problems to be a more important source of reduced psychological well-being for women than for men.…”