English Abstract
Abstract:
The current study aimed to identify the relationship between the dependence on psychiatric drugs and working memory in the elderly in Bahrain, as well as to identify how different this relationship (if any) according to: sex, and age group. Another purpose of the study is to identify the significant impact of variables such as: sex, marital status, age, level of education, chronic physical diseases, and the amount of used drugs on working memory for the elderly, as well as to identify the significant differences between genders and age groups and their effect on the working memory in the elderly. The study also aimed to identify the most psychiatric drugs that adversely affect the working memory in the elderly.
The study was based on a descriptive approach, both (Relational and Comparative) to identify the significance of the relationship between the dependence on psychological drugs and working memory for the elderly, and the differences in this relationship according to sex, and age group.
The study's population has included all the elderly in Bahrain, who aged over sixty years. A sample of the study included the elderly from the age of 60 years and above, who were around 60 elderly in the current study, (36 males by 60%, and 24 females by 40%), which represents about 2% of the original study population.
The tools of the study included the following tests: the visual range test, the visual span test, the acquisition lists, direct Immediatelists, the RecallList, verbal span test, and remembering visual direct Immediate Visual Recall of preparation: (Salah al- Din al-Sharif, 2003).
After the verification of the validity and reliability of these tools in the local environment, the most important outcomes were as the following:
1. There is no statistically significant correlation between dependence on psychological drugs and the working memory in the elderly in the Kingdom of Bahrain, as well as it became clear that there was no statistically significant correlation between alcohol and the working memory. While others have found inverse correlation statistically significant at the 0.05 level of significance between smoking and working memory in the elderly, in the sense that the greater the amount of smoking the more the working memory in the elderly will be deteriorated.
2. All correlation coefficients between reliance on psychiatric drugs and working memory in the elderly were not statistically significant; whether male or female, and were not statistically significant in different age groups, except for smoking in the elderly in the age group (60-74) which there was an inverse correlation statistically significant at the level of significance of 0.1 between smoking and working memory in this category.
3. All independent variables such as: sex, marital status, age, educational level, chronic physical diseases, and the amount of psychiatric drugs did not have an impact on the working memory in the elderly. 4. There are no statistically significant differences between the males and females in the working memory in the elderly.
5. There are no statistically significant differences between the age groups of the elderly on the working memory.
6. Despite the fact that psychiatric drugs in general were not related to the correlation statistically significant with the working memory for the elderly, however, by arranging these drugs according to their impact on the working memory of the elderly through calculating the linear regression analysis Linear Regression turned out to be that the most of these drugs which has a negative impact on the working memory for the elderly were: Xanax, then the Risperdal, and Tranxen.
