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Behavioral Health Innovations for Older Adults

Providing mental health care to older adults can be creative and rewarding. In this issue, we present review papers and intervention development papers focusing on novel interventions to improve emotional well-being in older adults. Also included are a series of studies that aim to further parse discrete predictors of mental health in older adults, which may further inform future interventions. We begin with three review papers. The first review paper describes 26 articles (23 studies) of “low intensity” interventions (self-help, psychoeducation, bibliotherapy, etc.) for older adults with mildto-moderate mental health concerns (Cremers, Taylor, Hodge, & Quigley, 2019), finding improvements in mental health. The authors express enthusiasm for these approaches but urge caution about generalizability. The second review paper describes 32 articles (28 studies) of virtual reality interventions for persons living with Parkinson’s disease who experience anxiety (Thangavelu et al., 2020). The authors conclude that virtual reality interventions are feasible and potentially useful in this population. The third and final reviews in this issue is a major effort to synthesize mental health needs of older U.S. military veterans (Karel et al., 2020) considering prevalence and risk, utilization, intervention, and care delivery model studies. This paper will be a core resource for anyone seeking to understand mental health needs of veterans across mental health conditions. Next, in this issue are smaller scale studies that examine innovative interventions using novel approaches such as mindfulness, meditation, nature, performance art, and visual art. In a pilot randomized trial (N = 19) mindfulnessbased stress reduction (MBSR) led to increased relaxation, greater interpersonal connection, increased body awareness and changes in cholesterol (Gentile, Starnino, Dupuis, & D’Antono, 2021) in older adults at risk for coronary artery disease. In a non-randomized trial (N = 24) high rates of adherence were found in a 10 week “compassion mediation” program with improvements in satisfaction with life and rumination. The authors also present detailed participant feedback related to feasibility, impact, and ageappropriate modifications to guide a future randomized trial. In a charming paper about the potential value of nature-based activity for mental health, feedback from seven focus groups (N = 30) was used to develop and implement a 6-week pilot randomized trial (N = 11) for persons living in an assisted living facility (Lee, Cassidy, Tang, & Kusek, 2020). The intervention focused on connectivity with nature via a bird identification and appreciation group, demonstrating improvements in depression, affect, life satisfaction, and stress. Clearly, the work needs extension to a larger sample; the authors’ detailed descriptions provide a roadmap for others. Two final papers were contributed by new and emerging professionals in gerontology. In another novel intervention, 34 older adults completed either a “mirror game” (a synchronous movement exercise common to performance arts) or an exercise program (Keisari et al., 2020). Those in the “mirror game” group had enhanced performance on attention measures and measures of positive experience. The final paper in this section describes a program