Education to promote verbal communication by caregivers in geriatric care facilities

Development of the Life-Worldly Communication Scale to Improve Quality of Life: Daily Conversation as Care for Older Adults

The lack of daily conversation may lead to the deterioration of quality of life and cognitive function in older adults requiring long-term care. This study aimed to develop a scale to measure daily conversation among them, the Life-Worldly Communication Scale: LWCS, and to test its structural, convergent, and discriminant validity. The subjects were 539 older adults requiring long-term care in facilities and at home. A 24-item provisional scale was created, using a panel of experts. Structural validity of LWCS was examined from exploratory factor analysis to establish the factor structure, two confirmatory factor analyses for cross-validation, and measurement invariance between the institutional and home setting. Convergent validity was examined from the average variance extracted: AVE, composite reliability: CR, and simple regression analysis between LWCS and Interdependent Happiness Scale: IHS. Discriminant validity was examined using the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations: HTMT. Multiple imputations were used to deal with missing data on these scales. The results showed that the goodness of fit of the three-factor, 11-item model obtained from the two-step CFA was SRMR = .043, RMSEA = .059, CFI = .978, and AGFI = .905. The model was confirmed for structural validity by measurement invariance tests: configural invariance (CFI=.973, RMSEA = .047), metric invariance (ΔCFI= .001, ΔRMSEA=-.004), scalar invariance (ΔCFI =-0.002, RMSEA = -0.003). Convergent validity was confirmed by AVE = .503~.772, CR = .801~.910, and simple regression analysis between LWCS and IHS (adjusted r2=.18, p < .001). Discriminant validity was also confirmed among the three factors (HTMT=.496~.644). LWCS can contribute to the assessment of daily conversation in geriatric settings and research regarding its promotion.

Does Everyday Conversation Contribute to Cognitive Functioning? A Comparison of Brain Activity During Task-Oriented and Life-Worldly Communication Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

This study aimed to explore differences in frontal lobe brain activity associated with two types of communication: task-oriented and life-worldly, the latter of which largely overlaps with everyday conversation. Using near-infrared spectroscopy, we explored differences by comparing oxygenated hemoglobin concentrations associated with periods of rest and conversation in two experimental groups comprising older and younger adults. Artifacts were removed from the signals using discrete wavelet transforms. Paired t-tests were used to compare the resulting data for the two types. The results showed that oxygenated hemoglobin levels during life-worldly communication were significantly higher than at baseline or during task-oriented communication, particularly for the older adult group. In addition, during life-worldly communication, relatively high levels of brain activity were found in the upper part of the Broca area and in the premotor cortex. These results, which suggest that life-worldly communication generates more activity in the frontal lobe, could potentially contribute to improving how caregivers communicate with older patients/residents in hospitals and nursing homes.