![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Spaced retrieval training (Camp, Citation1989, In Memory, Aging, and Dementia-Theory, Assessment, and Treatment (pp. 212–225), New York: Springer) uses a schedule of practice trials distributed according to a learner's performance. The authors compared spaced retrieval to four alternative schedules of practice to determine whether it is more effective than other schedules for people with dementia. Participants practiced (a) pill names or (b) nonverbal sequences. Spaced retrieval did not produce long-term retention more often than other schedules of practice on either task. Participants with higher scores on one portion of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test—Revised (Benedict, Schretlen, Groninger, & Brandt, Citation1998, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 12, 43–55) were more likely to show long-term retention of pill names regardless of schedule of practice (Experiment 1).
The authors are grateful to all who assisted with these projects at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Minneapolis, MN, and at Martin Luther Manor in Bloomington, MN. Preparation of this report and the research contained within was supported by NIA 2T32AG00198, NIA 1T32AG00274, and by a University of Minnesota Special Dissertation Grant.
Notes
The data were also included as part of the doctoral thesis of the first author at the University of Minnesota and the Master's thesis of the third author at Minnesota State University at Mankato. Angela Hochhalter is now at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Note. MMSE = Mini-Mental State Examination (Folstein et al., Citation1975); HVLT-R-I = sum of three immediate recall trails on the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test—Revised (HVLT-R; Benedict et al., Citation1998); HVLT-R-D = delayed recall score on the HVLT-R; HVLT-R-DI = discrimination index score for delayed recognition on the HVLT-R; DF = Digits Forward subscale of the Wechsler Memory Scale—Revised (WMS-R; Wechsler, Citation1987); DB = Digits Backward subscale of the WMS-R. “NA” indicates that the assessment was not conducted.