[Qualitative study about prospective memory's difficulties in the elderly: nature of memory subjective complaint and mnemonics used]. / Étude qualitative des difficultés de mémoire prospective chez la personne âgée : nature de la plainte mnésique subjective et des aides utilisées.

Prospective memory is the ability to remember to execute an action at the appropriate time. Although it is essential in the daily activities and thus in the maintenance of people autonomy, some questions remain unanswered, and in particular its effects on age and its efficiency. This qualitative exploratory study aims to a better understanding of the extent and nature of the difficulties experienced by the elderly in terms of prospective memory in real life, and reminders used by them. Semi-directive and directive interviews were conducted with 14 people over 66 of age and assessed by manual content analyzes. The results show disturbances of prospective memory expressed by the elderly, which differ according to the type of task and seem to be fitting with the results found in natural environment. They also show that external memory aids are more often used by older people even if they are considered by them to be less effective than the interns one. Our results give some insight into the reminders, which are spontaneously used or not used by the elderly and allow to look ahead to new perspectives in terms of memory rehabilitation.

Effet paradoxal du vieillissement sur des tâches de mémoire prospective time-based en situation de laboratoire et en milieu naturel : Rôle des fonctions exécutives.

The current study investigates the specific role of three executive functions in the explanation of performance variability on laboratory and naturalistic time-based prospective memory tasks in aging. Ninety people aged 18 to 80 years performed three executive tasks assessing inhibition, flexibility and updating, one laboratory time-based task and one naturalistic time-based task. The results indicate that age has a negative impact on the laboratory time-based task and a positive impact on the naturalistic task. The mediation analysis shows that inhibition and flexibility operate as a mediator in the negative relationship between age and the laboratory time-based task. Additionally, the hierarchical regression analyses show that, after controlling for age, none of the executive functions evaluated is predictive of performance of the naturalistic time-based task. Overall, these results seem to suggest that different cognitive processes underlie the performance on naturalistic and on laboratory time-based tasks. Future studies should confirm these results.

[Age-prospective memory-paradox: explanatory hypotheses]. / L'effet paradoxal du vieillissement sur la mémoire prospective: hypothèses explicatives.

Prospective memory is a complex cognitive function requiring to remember a planned action. For example, this function is particularly important for elderly people to remember taking medication at the appropriate time. The comparison of the performance of old and young peoples on different prospective memory tasks led to two contradictory results, a configuration that has been dubbed "age-prospective memory-paradox". The first set of results of the age-prospective memory-paradox configuration is in keeping with the effects of aging on cognitive functioning, older peoples generally performing less well than younger peoples on laboratory prospective memory tasks. The second set of results is at odds with the first one, as older peoples generally perform better than younger peoples on naturalistic prospective memory tasks. The aim of the present paper is to expose the main explanatory hypotheses of the age related deficit on laboratory prospective memory tasks in one hand and on the age related benefit on naturalistic prospective memory tasks on the other hand. Concerning laboratory prospective memory tasks, the main hypothesis is that the detrimental effect of age would be principally due to negative influence of age on executive control processes and retrospective memory processes involved in this kind of tasks. With respect to naturalistic prospective memory tasks, a higher motivational level and the fact that older people have more frequently recourse to external memory aids and to compensation strategies could explain the better results of older people.