Hanaoka Hideaki, Yamamoto Mariko, Tsubouchi Yoshihito, Yorozuya Kyosuke, Tsuda Kotaro, Kumota Koji, Kubo Yuta, Nakashima Daiki, Muraki Toshiaki, Tsunematsu Miwako, Kaneko Fumiko, Wada Mineko, Okamura Hitoshi
Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan.
Shimane Rehabilitation College, Nitagun, Japan.
Psychogeriatrics. 2025 Jul;25(4):e70037. doi: 10.1111/psyg.70037.
The use of a variety of sensory elements is recommended when implementing reminiscence therapy. However, there is a lack of evidence supporting this recommendation. This study aimed to examine the benefits of using smell as a memory trigger during reminiscence therapy for community-dwelling older adults, focusing on its effects on loneliness and depressive symptoms.
Seventy-nine community-dwelling older adults were randomly allocated to either an intervention or a control group. Participants in the intervention group underwent a total of eight 40-min. reminiscence therapy sessions once a week that used smell as a trigger. The control group underwent similar reminiscence therapy but only used themed conversations. Their responses were assessed pre- and post-intervention using the UCLA Loneliness Scale version 3 (UCLA LS3), which evaluates loneliness, and the Geriatric Depression Scale-15-Japanese, which measures the state of depressive symptoms.
The pre-intervention comparison of the participants' characteristics and each evaluation item showed significant differences (P = 0.030) between the two groups' olfactory visual analogue scale (VAS) scores. Subsequently, we performed analysis of covariance via repeated measurements, using olfactory VAS as the covariate, and found significant interactions in UCLA LS3 (P = 0.006) alone. To identify items for consideration during interventions, we examined factors related to post-intervention UCLA LS3 scores. Our results showed that the notion of usefulness, by which participants perceived the smell triggers to be useful for inducing reminiscence (P = 0.045), was significantly related to pre-intervention UCLA LS3 scores (P < 0.001) in the intervention group.
These findings show that using smell as a trigger during reminiscence therapy can effectively alleviate loneliness and suggest the need to prepare appropriate odorants for facilitating reminiscence.
在实施怀旧疗法时，建议使用多种感官元素。然而，缺乏支持这一建议的证据。本研究旨在探讨在针对社区居住的老年人进行怀旧疗法时，将气味用作记忆触发因素的益处，重点关注其对孤独感和抑郁症状的影响。
79名社区居住的老年人被随机分配到干预组或对照组。干预组的参与者每周接受一次，共八次40分钟的怀旧疗法，使用气味作为触发因素。对照组接受类似的怀旧疗法，但仅使用主题对话。使用第3版加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校孤独感量表（UCLA LS3）评估孤独感，以及使用老年抑郁量表15项日本版测量抑郁症状状态，在干预前后对他们的反应进行评估。
对参与者特征和各评估项目的干预前比较显示，两组的嗅觉视觉模拟量表（VAS）得分存在显著差异（P = 0.030）。随后，我们以嗅觉VAS作为协变量，通过重复测量进行协方差分析，发现仅在UCLA LS3中存在显著交互作用（P = 0.006）。为了确定干预期间需要考虑的项目，我们检查了与干预后UCLA LS3得分相关的因素。我们的结果表明，在干预组中，参与者认为气味触发因素对引发怀旧有用的有用性概念（P = 0.045）与干预前UCLA LS3得分显著相关（P < 0.001）。
这些发现表明，在怀旧疗法中使用气味作为触发因素可以有效减轻孤独感，并表明需要准备合适的气味剂以促进怀旧。
