At a glance
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A 14 Week Study of Mindfulness Effects on Attentional Control in Older Adults (The MACS Study: Mindfulness and Attentional Control in Seniors)
In Brief
A clinical study evaluating Mindfulness-inspired treatment and Brain health for Cognitive Aging. Completed, enrolled 42 participants across 1 site.
Detailed Summary
Attentional control, or individuals' ability to choose which stimuli in the environment they attend to and which they ignore, declines with older age. Studies from the past two decades suggest that mindfulness meditative practice, such as a standardized mindfulness based stress reduction programs, may increase the efficiency of attention networks.To date, the majority of studies that have related mindfulness meditation practice to attentional control have been based on retrospective self-reported mindfulness or cross-sectional measurement in experienced meditators. More recent experimental studies using pre-post training designs have shown that meditation-naïve individuals can experience attentional improvement with mindfulness intervention. This study seeks to elucidate the time course and process by which such attentional improvements might be achieved. This research study investigates change in attentional control as participants progress through an 8-week mindfulness-inspired training (MIT) intervention, and has two specific aims: 1) to determine the time course of change in attentional components such as cognitive control and sustained attention as a consequence of MIT; attention will be measured weekly for 3 weeks before, 3 weeks after, and during 8 weeks of MIT. 2) To investigate the extent to which change in attentional performance is coupled/correlated with markers of emotion regulation, perceived mindfulness, and perceived mind wandering.
Study Details
Timeline
Interventions
Eight weekly group MIT sessions lasting 90-120 minutes, along with a ½ day Mindfulness Retreat at the end of the training period, will include 1) psychoeducation, 2) formal exercises in the form of guided practice mentioned above, and 3) thoughtful exploration of ideas and questions. Formal MIT training will follow 21 guided pre-recorded meditative Moving Picture Experts Group Layer-3 Audio (MP3) tracks from the authors for use in class and at home, promoting both fidelity to the model and uniformity in intervention across training groups. MIT activities in the protocol include mindful breathing, eating, walking, and various other practices well documented in the literature to promote mindfulness. Participants will be asked to practice MIT on their own time, and to log this.
Eight weekly group brain health sessions lasting 90-120 minutes. The intervention is psychoeducational, and each week presents information from NIH regarding factors that may promote cognitive health in late life (e.g., sleep, physical activity, social engagement and leisure, cognitive training). Weekly sessions are supplemented with educational videos and group discussion. Weekly homework consists of readings about brain health.