Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Aging process causes malfunction of the nervous system and cognitive disturbances, including memory, learning, language skills and attention deficits. In the other hand, being in confined and restricted environments make these elderly persons deprived of their normal sensory stimulations that can cause many unwanted perceptual and cognitive consequences. Multi-sensory stimulation by arousing the reticular activating system has known positive effects on brain functions. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of Multi-Sensory stimulation on elderly people's memories living in Nursing homes in Ahvaz. Methods: The present study designed as a randomized clinical trial. The study population consisted of 28 elderly residents in three nursing Homes in Ahwaz. These people who were matched for age and sex were randomly allocated to intervention and control groups which each group included 14 people. In control group, the first edition of the Wechsler clinical memory scale assessed the memories of elderly people at the beginning and end of the research without Stimulating multi-sensory and at the same time it was done in intervention group. Intervention group received three 25 minutes sessions a week, for four weeks multi sensory stimulation consisted of hand massages with almond oil, and broadcasting nature music and images. Results: The Results showed that the average efficiency scores of elderly people memories in control and intervention groups were 52±3/84 and 51/5±4/57 respectively before starting sensory stimulation. That it has no significant difference (p>0/05). After multisensory stimulation, the memory scores changed in to 64/5±12/5 and 52/28±3/27 respectively that significant difference was observed between these two groups (p<0/05). Conclusion: Based on the study, we know that multi-sensory stimulation can increase the efficiency scores of memory of the elderly people in the Nursing homes.