# Enhancing Older Adults' Everyday Memory Function

> **NIH NIH R21** · GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2020 · $197,250

## Abstract

Project Summary
This project seeks to develop and validate a novel approach to training everyday memory functioning in older
adults. The approach (1) trains people to use simple but effective memory skills that have broad applicability in
everyday life and (2) shapes a set of skills and habits of mind that will increase the likelihood of effective use of
skills and memory aids. It is based on a metacognitive perspective on self-regulation in cognitively demanding
situations and informed by recent theories about how suboptimal habit patterns can be altered. The approach
has not yet been used in an everyday memory intervention in high-functioning, community-dwelling older
adults. The proposed research validates ecological momentary assessment methods to get actual behavioral
measures of forgetting in everyday life. It then uses these procedures in a randomized experiment that
contrasts the everyday memory intervention group with a traditional memory-strategy training group. The
hypothesis is that the everyday memory training intervention will reduce everyday memory errors and memory
complaints, whereas the memory strategy training will alter strategy use and memory performance, with little
cross-over effect. The hypothesized pattern will establish the explicit benefits of our everyday memory
intervention procedures and demonstrate the limitation of standard memory training for that purpose.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9998809
- **Project number:** 5R21AG059942-02
- **Recipient organization:** GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** CHRISTOPHER K HERTZOG
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $197,250
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9998809

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9998809, Enhancing Older Adults' Everyday Memory Function (5R21AG059942-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9998809. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*