title: Relationship of cognitive strategy use to prospective memory performance in a diverse sample of nondemented older adults with varying degrees of cognitive complaints and impairment.
abstract: Although older adults typically have better performance on prospective memory (PM) tasks carried out in naturalistic settings, a paucity of research directly assesses older adults' use of compensatory strategies on such tasks. The current study investigates external memory strategy use during performance of a clinical PM test that features both short-term (in laboratory) and long-term (out of laboratory) subtasks (i.e., the Royal Prince Alfred Prospective Memory Test - RPA-ProMem. Nondemented, community-dwelling older adults (n = 214; mean age = 80.5; 68.2% female; 39.7% non-white) with mild cognitive impairment, subjective cognitive decline, and healthy controls completed the RPA-ProMem while external strategy use was permitted and recorded. Overall, participants utilized external strategies 41% of the time on the RPA-ProMem. Increased utilization of external memory strategies was significantly associated with better PM performance. Additionally, better performance on executive functioning tasks was associated with increased use of external memory strategies. Results are discussed in relation to how memory strategy use can be enhanced to improve everyday memory ability in older adults at risk for dementia.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Brooklyn College of the City University of New York , Brooklyn , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Avner
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aronov
authors.forename: Laura A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rabin
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fogel
authors.forename: Susan Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Chi
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kann
authors.forename: Nachama
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abdelhak
authors.forename: Molly E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic
keywords: external memory strategies; memory strategy use; mild cognitive impairment; prospective memory; subjective cognitive decline