Extending the Reach of an Evidence-Based Theatrical Intervention

Abstract

Background/Study Context: In Experiment 1, the authors investigated whether they could train retirement home activity directors with no previous experience in theatre to successfully execute an evidence-based 4-week theatre-arts intervention. In Experiment 2, they investigated whether an outside professional acting teacher who received only minimal training via e-mail and telephone could successfully execute the same intervention heretofore only carried out by the actor/director/professor who devised it.

Methods: A total of 115 participants (ages 68–94) in four different retirement homes were taught theatre arts either by their in-house activity director who had no formal training in theatre or a professional acting teacher recruited through a local community college. The intervention consisted of twice-weekly 70-min lessons for 4 weeks. After random assignment to experimental or waiting-list control groups, participants were given pre- and posttests on both functional and cognitive measures.

Results: Experiment 1 showed that activity directors were able to run this intervention and achieve significant results on the 28-item functional measure (Observed Tasks of Daily Living, Revised [OTDL-R]) as measured by a mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired-sample t tests (p < .001), and on one cognitive measure, Means-End Problem-Solving (MEPS), as measured by a multivariate ANOVA (MANCOVA) and follow-up univariate ANOVAs. Experiment 2 (outside acting teacher) used the identical measures and revealed significant results on the OTDL-R (p = .002), word recall, MEPS, and verbal fluency ( ranging from .28 to .59).

Conclusions: This study addressed the feasibility of training multiple instructors of varying experience to administer this theatre-arts intervention. Previous iterations had all been administered by the professional actor/director/theatre professor who devised the program. These current results demonstrate that widespread administration of this short-term (4-week) evidence-based intervention is feasible.

Acknowledgments

Portions of this research were presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA, April, 15–18, 2010.

This work was supported by grant 1R15AG032120-01 from the National Institute on Aging. The authors thank Graham Staines and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. The authors also thank the following students who assisted in the collection of data for this project: Michael Bixter, Michael Besch, Agnes Plawsiuk, Aislin Bright, Alexander Porter, Merage Ghane, Nesina Kritikos, and Andrew Hartley.

Notes

^a Maximum score = 32.

^b Maximum score = 18.

^c Maximum score = 34.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

Note. DV = dependent variable. Significance level: ***p < .001. R ² (unadjusted) = .646*** and R ² (adjusted) = .611.

^a Maximum score = 32.

^b Maximum score = 18.

^c Maximum score = 34.

**p < .001; *p = .01.; ˜p = .07.

Note. DV = dependent variable. Significance level: **p < .01; ***p < .001. R ² square (unadjusted) = .612***and R ² (adjusted) = .515.

Even when the regression was run using only one predictor at a time, no significant results were found (data not shown).