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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| An exploratory study of the effect of mahjong on the cognitive functioning of persons with dementia | | Author(s) | Sheung-Tak Cheng, Alfred C M Chan, Edwin C S Yu |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 21, no 7, July 2006 |
| Pages | pp 611-617 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Indoor games ; Cognitive processes ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Evaluation ; Hong Kong. |
| Annotation | The effect was explored of an activity treatment - mahjong - on the cognitive functioning of people with mild to moderate dementia. Participants were 62 older people in Hong King (mean age 83.94) who met DSM-IV diagnosis of any dementia condition and were able to play, yet not having played mahjong for the past 6 months. 33 were randomly assigned to play twice a week, 29 to play four times a week over 16 weeks. Digit forward span, digit forward sequence, verbal memory and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were measured at baseline, post-test and 1-month follow-up. Regardless of frequency of playing, mahjong produced consistent gains across all cognitive performance measures. It had large effect sizes on digit forward memory, moderate to large effect sizes on verbal memory, and a moderate effect size on MMSE. The effects lasted after mahjong had been withdrawn for a month, suggesting that constant practice is not necessary to achieve therapeutic effect once an initial threshold is attained. Because mahjong therapy does not require professional supervision and can be implemented as widely as space allows at a given time, the personal benefits of integrating mahjong into an institution's daily routines are enormous vis-à-vis minimal, if any, cost to the institution. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060809207 A |
| Classmark | EA: HO: DA: DB: 4C: 7DR |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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