Pages: 6-12

Abstract

(.The study aimed to compare emotion regulation skills among elder adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease and normal elders. In this cross-sectional study, which was of causal-comparative type, the researchers visited the Iran Alzheimer Association and randomly chose 19elder adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease aged 60 years or older and 19 normal elders matched by the elders adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. The mentioned two groups were tested using Mini Mental Status Examination. A Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz and Roemer, 2004) was used to examine the emotion regulation. Regarding the hypothesis testing, based on comparison between emotional self-regulation among elder adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease and normal elders, the results of one-way ANOVA test indicated that these two groups were completely different in terms of emotional self-regulation. Accordingly, the elder adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease had more difficulty than normal elders in regulating their emotions. Regarding the variables of the difficulties in emotion regulation, lack of emotional awareness (P<0.05) and lack of emotional clarity (P<0.01) were higher in elders adults stricken with Alzheimer’s disease compared to normal elders. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of other variables (P>0.05