Clinical trial NCT05359289: Effects of Forest Therapy on Cognitive Performance and Mental Health in Older Adults Health in Older Adults
Official title: Effects of Forest Therapy on Cognitive Performance and Mental Health in Older Adults
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Forest Therapy for Cognition
Keywords: forest therapy
successful ageing
physical and mental health
cognitive health
senior fitness
clinic trial
brain imaging
Lead sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
name: National Taiwan University
name: National Taiwan Science Education Center
First posted: 2022-05-03
Enrollment: 120
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 65
Standard ages: OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: In Taiwan, aging is happening at a fast pace. The Taiwan Ministry of Interior officially announced that Taiwan will become an aged society in April 2018 and is expected to transition into a hyper-aged society within eight years. Critically, scholars recognize that optimizing cognitive activity and wellbeing influences quality of life in a late life which in turn is a key factor for successful aging. To alleviate the social and economic impact of aging, as well as impact on families, there is a need for studying anti-aging approaches. The World Health Organization suggests that the general public should have a healthy lifestyle which includes participating in activities for physical health, as well as cognitive and mental health involving maintaining social interactions. This present research is part of a broader integrated program in which the purpose is to promote and study the efficacy of forest therapy on physical health, and cognitive and mental health in older adults. The study site is located at the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) which includes wetlands, waterfronts, green-spaces and urban parks. The investigators will evaluate two types of interventions for participants, "forest therapy program" and "fitness program" for older adults. The study approach applies a between-subjects and pretest-posttest design. The investigators will collect participants' physical data, psychological responses, and cognitive performance in the course of both programs. By comparing these data before and after the intervention programs, the investigators seek to understand the both programs' effects on physical health, and cognitive and mental health.

Detailed description: In Taiwan, aging is happening at a fast pace. The Taiwan Ministry of Interior officially announced that Taiwan will become an aged society in April 2018 and is expected to transition into a hyper-aged society within eight years. Critically, scholars recognize that optimizing cognitive activity and wellbeing influences quality of life in a late life which in turn is a key factor for successful aging. To alleviate the social and economic impact of aging, as well as impact on families, there is a need for studying anti-aging approaches. The World Health Organization suggests that the general public should have a healthy lifestyle which includes participating in activities for physical health, as well as cognitive and mental health involving maintaining social interactions. This present research is part of a broader integrated program in which the purpose is to promote and study the efficacy of forest therapy on physical health, and cognitive and mental health in older adults. The study site is located at the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) which includes wetlands, waterfronts, green-spaces and urban parks. The investigators will evaluate two types of interventions for participants, "forest therapy program" and "fitness program" for older adults. The study approach applies a between-subjects and pretest-posttest design. The investigators will collect participants' physical data, psychological responses, and cognitive performance in the course of both programs. By comparing these data before and after the intervention programs, the investigators seek to understand the both programs' effects on physical health, and cognitive and mental health. In addition, the investigators will elucidate the efficacy of the forest therapy program through measurement of the changes in physical, cognitive, and mental health performance and status indicators. The forest therapy and fitness programs at National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC), along with a robot programming training and tinkering activities that are part of the broader project, acts as a public education and service window towards addressing cognitive aging issues in Taiwan. It should be further noted that this will be a critical platform for obtaining ecological research data on a novel class of cognitive interventions for cognitive aging using psychological and brain imaging techniques to bridge critical neural mechanistic knowledge gaps.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Literate in Mandarin and Taiwanese.
* Willing to participate entirely in this research.
* Age \> 65.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Participated in cognitive-related training in the past two months.
* Diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment(MCI)
* Severe psychological or behavioral disorder that would seriously interfere with the progress of activity.
* Severe hearing Impairments or visual Impairment
* History of degenerative cognitive disorders, Organic Mental Disorders, Brain Dysfunction, Psychogenic neurosis.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Changes of neural functional activity during inferential processing
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Changes of learning rate during inferential processing
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Changes in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in the Profile of Mood States(POMS)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in State-Trait Anxiety Inventory(STAI)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Chinese Word Remote Associate Task(CWRAT)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Diastolic Blood Pressure(DBP) and Systolic Blood Pressure(SBP)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in heart rate
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in heart rate variability (HRV)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Body Mass Index(BMI)
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Waist-Hip Ratio
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in 30s arm curl test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in 30s chair stand test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in back scratch test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in chair sit-and-reach test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in Seated Up- and- Go Test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
measure: Change in 2-minute step test
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Changes of neural functional activity during resting-state
timeFrame: week 0, week 12
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Taipei
country: Taiwan
facility: School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University
city: Taipei
country: Taiwan
facility: National Taiwan Science Education Center
Study officials:
affiliation: National Taiwan University
name: Chia-Pin Yu, Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: