A Clinical Study on the Effect of Group Nostalgia Therapy on Quality of Life and Cognitive Function in Elderly Patients with Depression

Background: Elderly people with depression require special care and attention. However, nostalgia is a complex emotional situation for a person who recalls the missing past. To improve mental health, quality of life, and attitudes toward aging in institutional care, group nostalgia therapy can be a nursing intermediary for the elderly. This study aimed to analyze the effect of group nostalgia therapy on quality of life cognitive function in elderly patients with depression. Methods: A total of 89 participants were enrolled in this study, which was further categorized into a control (n = 40) and a nostalgia therapy group (n = 49). A standard questionnaire was used to compare the QoL, MMSE and GDS scores between the control and the nostalgia therapy groups. Results: Neither the nostalgia group nor the control group showed any statistical difference based on the patient characteristics, and both groups had a homogeneous distribution with p < 0.05. However, in the intervention with nostalgia therapy, the therapy group showed improvements in almost all four domains of quality of life: physical health, psychological, environmental and social well-being. Moreover, the standard regression residual plot observed that both the post-test scores of MMSE and GDS showed favorable scores with respect to WHO-QoL. Conclusion: The study observed that group nostalgia therapy helps improve the quality of life and cognitive function in elderly patients with depression. The study also concludes that reducing depressive symptoms through nostalgia therapy could improve all four domains of the WHOQoL BREF.