Creativity in Everyday Life Challenges: A Cognitive Training to Foster Creative Thinking in Healthy Older Adults

The present study aims at investigating the potential cognitive and psychological effects of creative thinking abilities in older adults, through an online group training program - Creativity in Everyday life Challenges (CREC). CREC was fully designed with exercises based on the main mental operations involving creativity to enhance divergent thinking and cognitive flexibility in the elderly. It is assumed that these abilities cover a key role in aging since they suggest new and functional strategies to cope with daily problems, supporting older adults’ wellbeing and autonomy. The training includes 10 sessions to be carried out in small groups twice a week, each lasting about 60 minutes. Before and after the training, a cognitive battery was administered in individual online sessions to assess creative thinking, specific cognitive abilities related to creativity, and emotional states. Preliminary results concern a sample of 21 healthy older adults (sex: 5 male; age: 67.71 yrs. ± 5.07; education: 14.38 yrs. ± 3.72), showing an improvement in cognitive abilities and emotional states after the creative training. These preliminary results suggest that creativity can be a useful resource for promoting healthy aging.