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Leslie McDonald-Miszczak, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Western Washington University
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Contact Information: Dept. of Psychology Western Washington University 516 High Street Bellingham, WA USA 98230-9089 Tel 360-650-7943 Fax 360-650-7305 Leslie.McDonald-Miszczak@wwu.edu ____________________________________________ My Class Schedule for 2008-2009
Fall Quarter 2008
MWF 1-2:20
MWF 10-11:20
Winter Quarter 2009
(Psyc. 431) Topic: Managing Chronic Illness in Late Life MWF 11-11:50
MWF 1-2:20
Spring Quarter 2009
(Psyc. 230) MWF 10-11:20
MWF 1-2:20
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News from the Seniors' Health, Abilities, and Lifestyles Lab SHALL Studies __________________________________ Update on the Stress and Everyday Memory Project and the Caregiver Stress Project
Stress and Everyday Memory Project The Stress and Everyday Memory Project examined the relationship between daily stress and memory performance in an everyday setting and in a dynamic fashion. Specifically, younger and older adults were asked to remember to remove a placebo 4 times a day from a memory monitor for 1 week. The monitor contains a microchip that measures the date and time the placebo is removed, so the data can be easily assessed for accuracy (e.g., adhering to the "prescribed" regimen). The monitor was carried by each participant for 1 week, so the task was indeed an "everyday" memory requirement. In analyses, we are examining the within person relationship between his/her reported stress and performance of the memory task.
Preliminary data from the older adults sample was presented at the last annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in San Francisco, CA. This data was presented as part of a symposium on the role of memory in medication adherence. The full data set will be presented at the next annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Baltimore, MD next November. I will travel with graduate student and former undergraduate RA Jessica Anderson to the meeting. Here are copies of 2 abstracts we submitted a few months ago.
Age Differences in Everyday Memory: Event- and Time-Based Prospective Memory By Leslie McDonald-Miszczak and Jessica H. Anderson The objective of the present study was to measure prospective memory performance of younger and older adults using a standardized everyday memory task. Specifically, 20 older adults (M= 78, SD=5.96) and 17 younger adults (M=22, SD=1.42) were asked to remove 1 placebo pill 4 times per day at specified time intervals for 1 week. Medication monitors were used to track the accuracy of cap openings. Although the participants showed typical age-related differences on standard cognitive measures, results indicated that older adults were significantly more accurate than younger adults at opening the monitor the correct number of times each day (t=-2.14, p<.05). Both age groups were equally inaccurate in adhering to the timing schedule (64% and 70%, respectively). An assessment of working memory was the only cognitive measure to correlate significantly with both cap openings and timing accuracy. Within groups analyses indicated significant linear change for both adherence measures (cap openings and timing accuracy) indicating decreasing accuracy across time. The results of this study suggest that medication monitors can be used to effectively track everyday memory performance in the real-world over significant periods of time.
Daily Stress Affects Older Adults' Everyday Memory Performance By Jessica H. Anderson, Leslie McDonald-Miszczak, and Shevaun Neupert The present study examined the relationship between daily stress assessments and older adults’ everyday memory performance. Twenty older adults (M= 78 yrs., SD=5.96) were asked to adhere to a pseudo-medication regimen for 1 week. Medication monitors, filled with placebos, and stress assessments provided data for each day. Results from a fully unconditional multilevel model revealed that 15% of the variability in daily adherence task was between people, while 85% was within people. Adherence significantly decreased over the course of the study (γ10 = -.09, t = -4.02, p < .0001), with time explaining 6% of the within-person variability. Subsequent models examined whether within-person fluctuations in daily adherence would be associated with daily stressors. Although the number of stressors experienced each day was unrelated to adherence, additional models examining specific stressor domains controlling for day of study revealed that days characterized by health-related stressors were associated with better adherence (γ10 = .23, t = 1.85, p = .065) compared to days without health-related stressors. This model explained 8% of the within-person variability in daily adherence. An additional model revealed that stressors associated with participation in the daily study were linked with poorer adherence (γ10 = -.50, t = -4.62, p < .0001) compared to days without study-related stressors. This model explained 12% of the within-person variability in daily adherence. The results indicate that particular stressors help explain intra-individual variability in older adults’ adherence to a standardized everyday memory task.
Our Latest Project: Family Caregiver Stress: Caring for a loved one with dementia Presently, we are conducting data collection with full-time older adult (aged 65 years +) caregivers of family members with dementia. We must thank the Alzheimer Society for their overwhelming support for this project and their assistance with participant recruitment. This group of individuals is under a tremendous amount of stress and burden in their daily lives, so we gratefully acknowledge their willingness to participate in our program of research. We are still seeking volunteers for this study, so if you or anyone you know is a full-time (i.e., over 20 hours per week) caregiver of a family member with dementia, we would love the opportunity to speak with you about our study. In the near future, we will be expanding our data collection to include younger caregivers (aged 30-50 years). Please contact Dr. McDonald-Miszczak at 650-7943.
Student Involvement An important function of my research program is to provide training opportunities to psychology students at WWU. Past Undergraduate RAs Involved in the Memory Monitoring Project 2004-2005 Pictured in the back row are Kelsey Harper, Cate
O’Leary, and Naomi Boyd. In the front row are Satish Ravidran and Della
Plaster.
2005-2006 Undergraduate RAs Sondra Johnson, Nicole Chapin, and Fia Lotsu helped collect memory monitor data from college students Past Undergraduate RAs Involved in the Stress and Memory Project
2006-2007 Undergraduate RAs pictured here presenting data from the project at Northwest Cognition And Memory (NOWCAM) conference in Vancouver, BC are Jessica Anderson, Kilioe Fern, and Ashley Ruggles. Not pictured are Liz Rankin and Kate Murphy who contributed significantly to data collection and scoring. Present Undergraduate RAs Involved in the Caregiver Stress & Memory Project
2007-2008 Undergraduate RAs Breanne Wise, Stephanie Edmunds, Steve Pote, and graduate student Jessica Anderson walk miles to raise money and awareness for Alzheimer's Disease. Missing from the photo is undergraduate RA Jessica Ottmar who decided to run the 5k, so she had already started the race! Way to go team! Please Keep in Touch Please feel free to contact us at WWU or pass along our contact information to friends or family who might be interested in participating in our projects. The research lab telephone number is 650-7951 or you can e-mail Dr. McDonald-Miszczak at Leslie.McDonald-Miszczak@wwu.edu.
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