Writing and Health in Older Adults

University Of Nevada Reno, Reno NV

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Abstract

The objectives of this study are (a) to determine whether previous findings of positive health effects of repeated written disclosure about personal trauma extend to older adults and (b) to examine two specific cardiovascular reactivity patterns of older adults during the writing and to a subsequent cognitive stressor. Evidence exists indicating that disclosure of traumatic events through repeated writing is followed by positive health outcomes. The processes linking disclosure and health however are not well understood. We propose an investigation of the relationships between written disclosure, its cardiovascular concomitants, cardiovascular reactivity to subsequent stressors, and longer-term physical health outcomes in individuals age 65 and older. The proposed investigation will clarify the physiological concomitants and consequences of written disclosure and improve the understanding of the linkage between disclosure and positive health outcomes. Further, the proposed investigation will attempt to extend health outcome findings to older adults. This extension could promote the development of efficient and cost-effective interventions for the elderly. The proposed project will ask older adult volunteers to write in 3 sessions either about a personal trauma or about an innocuous (Control) topic. In a 4th session, participants will be given a moderately stressful cognitive task. Volunteers will be restricted to men and women (a) 65 years of age and older, (b) who are willing to write by hand, and (c) who can read and write in English. Volunteers will be screened for dementia and depressive symptoms. Based on prior research in our laboratory and elsewhere, key predictions are: (1) Trauma writers will show greater myocardial reactivity and lesser peripheral vascular reactivity than Control writers, implying more adaptive stress reactivity by the Trauma writers, (2) Trauma writers (a) will report more physical symptoms immediately following the writing sessions but (b) will make less health care visits in the 4 months following writing than will Control writers. The information obtained will lay groundwork for our long-term objective of explicating the social, psychological and biological process entailed in the disclosure and health relationship, and assessing the utility of the trauma disclosure procedure as an effective component of health care delivery to older people.