Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Experiencing changes in ones' memory and concentration due to aging or brain-related conditions can make an individual feel less capable or competent relative to his/her previous self or peers. Aging individuals report 'being panicked' or feeling 'mentally ill' because of these changes. Group rehabilitation programs help these individuals by making them feel more normal about their memory and concentration changes. Normalizing one's experiences and emotions provides a powerful source of relief and facilitates individuals in accepting and adjusting to their new lives. These experiences seem to maximize actual and perceived memory improvements, treatment progress, and functional outcomes from rehabilitation programs. Since a sense of feeling normal seems to be a critical component of memory rehabilitation improvement, there is a strong need to develop a tool that measures this feeling. Thus, for my dissertation I will develop and validate a questionnaire called the Psychological Normalization Inventory (PNI) that assesses an individual's sense of feeling normal in regards to their memory and concentration issues. This tool will then be used to (a) determine whether a new online memory intervention program fosters a sense of feeling normal and (b) examine whether this feeling positively affects rehabilitation outcomes. Through this research and the development of the PNI, I will help clinicians understand their clients' psychological experiences and facilitate them in assessing whether a rehabilitation program fosters a sense of feeling normal. Moreover, by assessing whether normalization influences rehabilitations outcomes, I will gain insights that will facilitate the ultimate goal of maximizing memory and functional improvements from rehabilitation programs that aim to improve memory and concentration.