Psychosocial Determinants of Quality of Life and Active Aging. A Structural Equation Model.

Population aging is the 21st century's predominant demographic event. The old-age dependency ratio is projected to rise sharply in the next decades. Variables of health-related quality of life can be useful in designing interventions for promoting active aging to prevent dependency and save governments' budgets.

Effects of Video Game Training on Behavioral and Electrophysiological Measures of Attention and Memory: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Neuroplasticity-based approaches seem to offer promising ways of maintaining cognitive health in older adults and postponing the onset of cognitive decline symptoms. Although previous research suggests that training can produce transfer effects, this study was designed to overcome some limitations of previous studies by incorporating an active control group and the assessment of training expectations.

Objective: The main objectives of this study are (1) to evaluate the effects of a randomized computer-based intervention consisting of training older adults with nonaction video games on brain and cognitive functions that decline with age, including attention and spatial working memory, using behavioral measures and electrophysiological recordings (event-related potentials [ERPs]) just after training and after a 6-month no-contact period; (2) to explore whether motivation, engagement, or expectations might account for possible training-related improvements; and (3) to examine whether inflammatory mechanisms assessed with noninvasive measurement of C-reactive protein in saliva impair cognitive training-induced effects.

Modeling Active Aging and Explicit Memory: An Empirical Study.

The rapid growth of the population of older adults and their concomitant psychological status and health needs have captured the attention of researchers and health professionals. To help fill the void of literature available to social workers interested in mental health promotion and aging, the authors provide a model for active aging that uses psychosocial variables. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among the latent variables of the state of explicit memory, the perception of social resources, depression, and the perception of quality of life in a sample of 184 older adults.

Corrigendum: Brain training with non-action video games enhances aspects of cognition in older adults: a randomized controlled trial.

[This corrects the article on p. 277 in vol. 6, PMID: 25352805.

A randomized controlled trial of brain training with non-action video games in older adults: results of the 3-month follow-up.

This randomized controlled study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02007616) investigated the maintenance of training effects of 20 1-hr non-action video game training sessions with selected games from a commercial package on several age-declining cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing after a 3-month no-contact period. Two groups of cognitively normal older adults participated in both the post-training (posttest) and the present follow-up study, the experimental group who received training and the control group who attended several meetings with the research team during the study but did not receive training.

Brain training with non-action video games enhances aspects of cognition in older adults: a randomized controlled trial.

Age-related cognitive and brain declines can result in functional deterioration in many cognitive domains, dependency, and dementia. A major goal of aging research is to investigate methods that help to maintain brain health, cognition, independent living and wellbeing in older adults. This randomized controlled study investigated the effects of 20 1-h non-action video game training sessions with games selected from a commercially available package (Lumosity) on a series of age-declined cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing.