Emotion-Focused Mindfulness Therapy: A Feasibility Study for Late Life Anxiety

Summary

Canadians 65 and older experience anxiety at a rate of 6.4%, affecting more than 300,000 people. In Ontario, 5.6% of adults 65 and older have anxiety, representing over 100,000 people. Eastern Ontario primary care clinics report significantly higher numbers of adults 65 and older diagnosed with anxiety at between 28% and 30%, representing approximately 4,600 people diagnosed with anxiety. Costs to the Canadian health care system of anxiety in community dwelling adults aged 65 and older have been estimated at $61.2 to $119.8 million per 1,000,000 people. These costs can reasonably be expected to increase by 2021 when the percentage of older adults 65+ with mental illness is estimated to be approximately 30% of the older population base.

Anxiety in older adults has been linked retaining new information and the instrumental activities of daily living, sleep disturbance, suicidal ideation particularly among men, and increased use of health care services. Present pharmacological treatments for anxiety in older adults have met with limited success. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are an area of research interest in the treatment of anxiety. The use of MBIs has shown a trend toward self-reported lower levels of chronic stress and psychological stress among older adults small scale RCTs and qualitative studies.

Emotion focused mindfulness meditation therapy (EFMT) is a MBI that shows promise. EFMT has been demonstrated to reduce symptoms of anxiety in general populations. EFMT's focus on meditation and the felt sense of emotions, rather than learning new material, may make it a promising intervention for reducing symptoms of anxiety for older adults who often report normal aging problems such as general forgetfulness and difficulty with word recall. EFMT may be a potentially promising intervention that has not yet been tested in older adults. EFMT can be offered in primary care, community and hospital settings. Further research is required to determine if EFMT could reduce anxiety for older adults.

Conditions

• Anxiety

Interventions

OTHER

Emotion-Focused Mindfulness Therapy

EFMT is a group intervention of 8weekly meetings of 2.5 hours with 10 - 12 participants per group. Participants are provided instruction that encourages noting and experiencing bodily sensations and emotions during meditations. Meditations are conducted in silence for between 20 and 35 minutes. Participants are asked to journal their recollection of the meditation and experiences that arise for them as they journal. Each participant then describes their experience in meditation, with the facilitator offering empathic exploration to support transforming negative emotions into adaptive emotions. The study will be conducted in an online PHIPPA protected platform and has been modified to accommodate electronic delivery. Maximum number of participants per group will be six, and each session will be 1.5 hours. Data will be collected at three points by a research assistant to evaluate the feasibility of EFMT for older adults and determine whether anxiety is influenced by the intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Stacey Hatch

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stacey Hatch, PhDcandidate · Queens University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-08-03

Primary Completion

2021-08-31

Completion

2021-09-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations