Increasing the ability of older adults to live independently is a growing public health priority. Because age-related memory declines intimate risk of dependency, older adults are concerned about their ability to remember information and events of a few hours ago and acts performed even a few moments ago. We propose an innovative CD-ROM/Web Attention Trainer to improve three basic aspects of attention, i.e., coordinating, allocating, and focusing, relevant to everyday cognitive function of community-residing elderly. Memory theories pose a central role for attention in guiding the initial encoding and later retrieval of to-be-learned information, and deficits in attention, rather than in retrieval, may undermine the elderly's everyday memory functioning. Enhancing basic attention components will help mitigate against many everyday cognitive complaints of the elderly when running multiple errands such as medication regimen compliance and keeping physician appointments which place heavy demands on coordinating, allocating and focusing attention. The proposed intervention holds promise for older adults in bolstering their attentional skills including the encoding of new information into memory and remembering habitual acts. The program, designed to be comfortable, entertaining, and engaging, will equip elderly adults with skills to: maintain and increase attentional skills; to improve perceived efficacy for successfully completing everyday tasks with heavy attention demands; and to monitor the effects of increased attentional function on everyday cognition, memory, and performance. Phase I aims to design, develop and field test a prototype CD-ROM program called ATTENTION TRAINER to help increase and monitor changes in the three basic components of attention, and their effects on cognition and memory more broadly. Phase II will fully develop the Attention Training CD and Web program to meet the everyday cognitive needs of elderly across a spectrum of demographic variables.
