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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1839
igaa057.1839
Abstracts
Session 5320 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
A Novel Touch-Screen, Dual-Language Intervention Program for Older Adults
Yow W Quin  Chen Hui-Ching  Lokanathan Tharshini  Achenbach Attila  Blessing Lucienne  
Singapore University of Technology & Design, Singapore, Singapore
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”559 559
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Although cognitive training in healthy older adults (OA) has been controversial, specific and isolated cognitive skills such as semantic memory can be improved with appropriate designs. Semantic memory has been considered as a clinical marker for cognitive decline in dementia. The current study, as part of a larger touch-screen dual-language intervention program with cognitive training tools, aims to slow down the rate of cognitive decline in OA with dementia (OwD). A set of neuropsychological tests was conducted before and after the training program. After 24 training sessions over 8-12 weeks, OwD (11 females, 1 male, mean=85.8yo) improved significantly in their verbal working memory (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test; RAVLT) while performance of the cognitive-healthy OA (5 females, 3 males, mean=76.3yo) remained the same post-intervention. Our findings suggest that touch-screen technology can help OwD improve their semantic memory. The strengths and limitations of our game design and intervention will be discussed. Part of a symposium sponsored by Technology and Aging Interest Group.