Improving Older Individuals’ Physical Function Over Time With an Implicit-Age-Stereotype Intervention

Does your doctor need to completely change their stroke protocols to implicit vs. explicit interventions?  Does this add proof to this intervention style?

Explicit and implicit motor learning during early gait rehabilitation post stroke

The New York Times discussing this here;
Presumably after reading the full research.
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/a-workout-for-the-mind/
A few selected paragraphs here;

Yet the researchers have now reported, in the journal Psychological Science, that an “implicit” intervention works subliminally to strengthen older people’s positive age stereotypes. That leads, in turn, to stronger physical functioning. The effects were still evident three weeks after the intervention ended.

Here’s how it worked with a group of 100 older adults (average age 81) living New Haven, Conn. Once a week over four weeks, these volunteers were exposed to what’s sometimes called an “implicit association” exercise.

Some in the group saw positive words associated with aging — like wise, creative, spry and fit, along with old and senior — flashed on a laptop screen so briefly that while the brain registered them, people couldn’t tell what they said. “Perception without awareness,” as Dr. Levy put it. The sessions lasted about 15 minutes. Other subjects engaged in an “explicit” exercise, in which they were asked to write brief essays about active older people. The researchers controlled for age, sex and health.

As expected, follow-up tests showed that the implicit intervention significantly strengthened positive age stereotypes and self-perceptions of age. Then, one week and three weeks after the final session, participants were given physical tasks: repeatedly standing up from a chair and sitting down, walking across a room, holding poses that challenge balance.

The group exposed to implicit positive messages showed significant improvement in physical function, compared to their status before the experiment began. Those who participated in the explicit intervention and wrote essays showed no improvement.

In fact, the people who underwent four brief exposures to implicit positive messages showed greater physical improvement than a group of a similar aged, enrolled in a different study, that actually exercised for six months.