Drs. Tony and Helga Noice Receive 3rd NIH Grant
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September 30, 2008
This spring, Elmhurst College professor of psychology Dr. Helga Noice and her husband, Dr. Tony Noice, adjunct faculty member in the department of communication arts and sciences at Elmhurst College, received their third National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. The $159,000 award will further the Noices’ research on the enhancement of brain function in older adults.
“The receipt of the NIH grant communicates widely that this is highly regarded and important work,” said Dr. Tim Johnson, professor of public administration and director of survey research laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “The NIH only funds a very small portion of the applications they receive – the Noices’ was of exceptionally high quality.”
At a time when many people aged 60 and older express concern about their declining memory abilities, the Noices’ intervention offers hope to slow down (or even reverse) cognitive effects of aging.
Bill Hagerman of the Chicago Tribune described the Noice’s work as “solid science, trying to investigate a difficult question: which engaging activities keep people’s minds sharp in older age?”
Over the last 14 years, Helga and Tony Noice have demonstrated that the use of techniques used by actors can improve older adults’ cognitive performance.
“Acting is multi-modal – it’s cognitive, emotional, and physiological,” said Tony Noice, who is an actor himself. “Judging from the documented improvements, the intense mental activity involved in interacting with others in dramatic situations appears to stimulate neuronal activity in the brain.”
The Noices’ cognitive training, using theatre techniques with older adults, has resulted in statistically confirmed improvement in memory, comprehension, and problem-solving skills, as well as perceived quality of life.
This third NIH grant will be used to train activities directors at continuing care retirement communities and extend the Noices’ program and its cognitive benefits to many more people who need it. Tony and Helga have developed a training manual or how-to booklet, in order to further the ability of activity directors to pass on the technique.
“If we can teach this process to others, it will be able to be done everywhere in the country,” said Tony. “If this works, it is a huge step forward.”
Past grants received by the Noices have been used to confirm the effectiveness of the methods for their research on senior citizens of varying education and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Each of the three grants from the NIH is made particularly impressive by the fact that only one in five applications submitted result in funding. “It’s been a full year’s work, and for the final month, we both worked from morning until night on it,” said Helga of the grueling grant application process.
Helga and Tony Noice’s research has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, PBS-TV, the Washington Post, Psychology Today magazine, NBC-TV, WGN-TV, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as national publications of the AARP, nationally syndicated columnist Donald Kausler, and European news magazine Der Spiegel. Nine different textbooks have cited or described the research of “Noice and Noice.”
