Healthy Aging Project-Brain: A Psychoeducational and Motivational Group for Older Veterans

INTRODUCTION: Positive health behaviors can promote brain health with age. Although healthy lifestyle factors are often encouraged by health care providers, many older adults experience difficulty incorporating these into their daily life. METHODS: To address this gap, we developed a novel health education and implementation group for older veterans (aged > 50 years). The primary objectives of this group were to provide psychoeducation about the link between behaviors and brain health, increase personal awareness of specific health behaviors, and promote behavior change through individualized goal setting, monitoring, and support. Based on input from medical providers, group content targeted behaviors known to support cognitive functioning: physical activity, sleep, cognitive stimulation, and social engagement. CONCLUSIONS: This development project showed evidence of increased awareness of health behaviors and improved mood. Expanded data collection will strengthen power and generalizability of results (increase sample diversity). It will also allow us to examine moderating factors, such as perceived self-efficacy, on outcomes.