Wisdom Mind Mindfulness for Cognitively Healthy Older Adults and Those With Subjective Cognitive Decline, Participant Workbook

Wisdom Mind is an empirically supported intervention program for older adults - those who are cognitively healthy, as well as those who may be experiencing some concerns about their thinking abilities, what we refer to as subjective cognitive decline. While mindfulness is already known to benefit a wide variety of individuals, the unique strengths of this program are the ways in which it is tailored specifically to older adults. Session content is grounded and contextualized with the developmental concerns of older adults (e.g., cognitive slip-ups, loss and grief). Content is further grounded in a clinical-neuropsychological perspective, which incorporates both restitution (i.e., scaffolding mindfulness practices in a sequence of increasing difficulty) as well as compensation (e.g., strategies to promote learning and integration). The session-by-session Facilitator Guide provides detailed information on how to deliver the program, as well as well as the reasoning behind why certain practices and strategies are provided at different times and in different ways. In this way, even seasoned mindfulness instructors can benefit from the facilitator guide, which provides integrative guidance on how to deliver mindfulness effectively to older adults. The companion Participant Workbook contains all of the necessary information to participate in the program, including written prompts for homework and space for notetaking. A companion website provides downloadable meditation audios that facilitators and participants can access throughout the program. For facilitators who wish to record their own audios, scripts are also provided in the guide for you to make these recordings yourself.

Colette M. Smart, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology and a member of the Graduate Faculty in the CPA-Approved Doctoral Training Program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She has also been a core member of the Subjective Cognitive Decline Initiative, an international working group of clinician-researchers focused on subjective cognitive decline. Dr. Smart is a registered psychologist, with her practice focused on clinical neuropsychology and cognitive rehabilitation. She has been practicing and teaching various forms of mindfulness for well over 20 years, and is particularly interested in tailoring mindfulness to individuals with various forms of cognitive impairment.