UCC - Elmhurst professors win award for boosting cognitive skills of seniors

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Elmhurst professors win award for boosting cognitive skills of seniors

> Written by Jeff Woodard
> November 10, 2010

Bingo, arts, and crafts are all well and good, but Helga and Tony
Noice knew there was more to improving quality of life in the world's
ever-growing number of geriatric communities.

So they studied how actors learn and retain information ?? and how
those processes affect cognitive aging ?? by conducting controlled
field studies in which they teach theater to older adults.

The hard work of the UCC-related Elmhurst (Ill.) College faculty
members have netted them the 2010 Gene D. Cohen Research Award in
Creativity and Aging, presented by the Gerontological Society of
America and the National Center for Creative Aging. The award will be
presented at the society's 63rd Annual Scientific Meeting, Nov. 19-23
in New Orleans.

"My dissertation was on the mental processes of professional actors,"
says Helga, a psychology professor. "With Tony being an actor, I was
familiar with how actors learned their roles. How actors memorize
their roles is quite different from what people think."

The project gained momentum at a conference in the mid 1990s when they
met two researchers, one interested in cognition, the other in
development. Related Helga, "I mentioned my idea and they said, 'We
wish you could come to Switzerland. We have such a huge population of
aging for you to draw from.' "

> So off they went.

"As soon as we returned from Switzerland, we wrote a grant to the
National Institutes of Aging and convinced them that this would be a
very good experiment to carry out here under much more controlled
conditions than we had in Switzerland," says Helga.

After 10 years of research, the Noices began to teach classes focused
on enhancing cognitive function while delaying cognitive aging.

"You have to think like a character, and if you're thinking like a
character, there are great physiological outcomes as well," says Tony,
who teaches theater in the Department of Communication Arts and
Sciences.. "It changes the tone of voice, facial expression, quality
of movement and body language."

By integrating mind, body and emotions, students improve their
perception of their quality of life, he adds.

"We're really teaching them the basics of acting, which is telling the
truth under imaginary circumstances," says Tony. "It's really being
there. 'There' always being the character."

Adds Helga, "In as little as four to six weeks, you can see a change."

The pair estimates that 15 percent of its study group comes from the
90-plus age demographic, with several subjects 95 or older.

Having produced 30 peer-reviewed publications on connections between
the arts and human cognition, the Noices have had their work supported
by grants from the National Science Foundation and The Schweizer
Nationalfond in Switzerland. They've also earned three successive
awards from the National Institute on Aging.

The Cohen award recognizes the seminal work of Dr. Gene D. Cohen, a
geriatric psychiatrist and the first head of the Center on Aging at
the National Institute of Mental Health. His research shifted the
conceptual focus on aging from that of a problem to one of promise and
potential.

On winning the award, Tony says, "It's a wonderful way to get our work
out to a much broader population than ours, which has been
specifically designated for the scientific community. We're not known
in the aging community as much as in the scientific community."