The Comparison of the Effectiveness of Humor Therapy and Cognitive Rehabilitation on Agitation and Apathy in the Elderly men with Mild Cognitive Impairment

The elderly need proper medical and psychiatric care and attention. So, choosing an appropriate therapeutic method for their psychological care, especially in the elderly with cognitive impairment, will be effective in improving their psychological symptoms and health. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the effectiveness of humor therapy and cognitive rehabilitation on agitation and apathy in male elders with mild cognitive impairment. It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all male elderly with mild cognitive impairment residing of nursing homes in Alborz province, Iran. At first, Kahrizak Charity Hospice was selected by purposeful sampling method, and then 51 elderly people were selected based on inclusion criteria, and assigned randomly into two experimental groups (humor and cognitive rehabilitation) and one control group. Cohen-Mansfield’s Agitation Inventory, Apathy’s Evaluation Scale and Montreal’s Cognitive Assessment-Basic were used to collect data. The two intervention groups received eight 90-minute sessions of Humor therapy based on the Mcghee’s 7 Humor Habits Program and Kelly and O’Sullivan’s Cognitive Rehabilitation, and the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. The results of univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that humor therapy reduces agitation and apathy. Moreover, cognitive rehabilitation reduced agitation and apathy. Meanwhile, there was no significant difference between humor therapy and cognitive rehabilitation in terms of reducing agitation and apathy. According to the effectiveness of humor therapy and cognitive rehabilitation in reducing agitation and apathy in this study, these interventions can be applied to improve psychological symptoms, personal functioning and interpersonal relationships in the elderly with mild cognitive impairment.
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