Therapeutic Interventions for Improving Cognitive Health in Elderly Patients

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
Cognitive health is the ability of any individual to think clearly, learn things around them
and remember as these indicates the normal and healthy functioning of brain (Ruggiero et al.,
2017). Different aspects of brain health that indicates towards normal functioning of brains are
motor functioning, emotional functioning, as well as sensory functioning due to which people are
able to lead an effective lifestyle (Monteiro-Junior et al., 2016). As per the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare (2019), the number of Australian population moving towards aging is
increasing constantly and more than 50% of the elderly patients that are living in the aged care
facilities are suffering from dementia and/or Alzheimer’ syndrome. This 50% of the population
that is suffering from dementia constitutes more than 7% of the total Australian population,
which is increasing every year (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). Dementia is a
health condition in which elderly people lose their ability to think, recall and lose their ability to
lead their social and working life (Cohen-Mansfield & Perach, 2015).
The primary aim of this paper is to find out the therapeutic interventions available for
elderly patients to improve their mental and cognitive abilities. In this aspect, several scientific
databases such as CINAHL, and Medline would be used so that accurate and appropriate
research articles could be identified. Further, after collecting accurate papers, three of them used
and would be critically appraised through CASP tools so that the details of these papers could be
collected effectively. Finally, after collecting findings from the research articles, a data synthesis
would be conducted for developing the therapeutic intervention for patient condition.

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PICOT question
The PICOT question that has been developed for this assessment is:
Does the application of evidence based therapeutic interventions are effective in
improving cognitive health of elderly patients compared to other interventions?
Search strategy
The search strategy that has been developed for this clinical question is dependent upon
the databases like CINAHL and Medline so that all the research article aligning with the PICOT
question could be collected and the could be used for the development of data synthesis. Further,
these interventions would also be used for the treatment of elderly patients to improve their
cognitive health. The search strategy would also include ‘Keywords’ that would be used to
identify research articles that has been used for the development of search strategy and then it
would be used for the data synthesis. The inclusion and exclusion criteria would also be
implemented so that identification and selection of research articles could be restricted. The
following section demonstrates the search strategy through flow chart:

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Database
1(CINAHL)
Database 2
(Medline)
The keywords that were used for this paper are: “Elderly
patient”, “therapeutic intervention”, “cognitive abilities”,
“and nursing interventions”
The Boolean operators that have been used in this search
strategy are AND, OR and NOT and these were used in
permutation and combination to determine effective search
n=136 n=452
The inclusion criteria that were used are: articles within 5 years
of publish, in English language, with peer review and primary or
secondary research, with proper data analysis, and mention of
therapeutic interventions in elderly
The exclusion criteria that have been selected are: language other
than English, abstract paper, not published within 5 years and
improper data analysis and research
Final n=10
n=75
(Developed by the author)

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Authors Year Country Methodology Participants Key finding
Liang, J. H., Xu,
Y., Lin, L., Jia, R.
X., Zhang, H. B., &
Hang, L.
2018 No specific country
has been chosen for
conduction of this
research process
the primary aim of
this research process
was to identify and
analyze four
different types of
interventions such as
physical exercise,
computerized
training for cognitive
development, music
therapy and
Nutrition therapy in
older adults for their
increased cognitive
abilities and
this research
process included 17
randomized control
trail from the pool
of 1747 research
articles and all these
participants were
blinded to their
participation
the findings of this
research process
indicated that
majority of the
patients that were
included in the
study and it was
observed that music
therapy and
computerized
cognitive training
are the
interventions that
showed maximum
benefit to the

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
functioning. The
study therefore
included all the
randomized control
trails, mixed method
trails and others in
the research process
so that effective and
developed study
design could be
found.
patients while
restoring their
health condition.
Carrion, C.,
Folkvord, F.,
Anastasiadou, D.,
& Aymerich, M.
2018 No specific country
has been chosen for
conduction of this
research process
This research article
also collected several
randomized control
trail related
evidences so that
higher level of
This research
articles collected
research papers
with 10 reality
orientation, 12
mixed trails and 25
It was seen through
all the research
processes that skill
training and mixed
method trails are
effective in