Sonya Arshad, Muhammad Faisal Qureshi, Syed Hasan Abbas Rizvi, Javeria Rizvi, Kanza Imtiaz, Kisa Hussain Rizvi, Khushbakht Ahmed, Khola Noman, Vishal Kumar.
Memory and cognitive flexibility in physical therapy students of Karachi.
Pak J Neurological Sci Jan ;15(1):9-18.

BACKGROUND Memory allows us to remember the skills that we have learnt and retrieve valuable information stored in the brain. Physical therapy is a multidimensional profession which demands efficient cognitive flexibility and decision-making skills with an excellent memory to help the therapist to multi-task. AIMS & OBJECTIVES; This study was proposed to find out the level of memory and cognitive flexibility among physical therapy students. METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 227 DPT students of both the gender (age 19-25) from two different institutes of Karachi between February 2019 to July, 2019. Five standard tests were used; Free Recall, Brown- Peterson and Delayed Recall, Stroop Test and Month Backward Test for STM, LTM and cognitive flexibility respectively. Test scores were divided into four categories (average, good, very good, excellent). The data was analyzed using SPSS 21. RESULT: The result showed that the mean age of participants was 22.3 ± 2.7 years. Out of 227 participants, 172 (75.77%) were females, while 55(24.22%) were males. Only the highest scores of each test are being reported here. 71.1% of participants scored ‘good’ in Free Recall Test. 45.6% of participants achieved ‘very good’ in Brown Peterson Test, The maximum score of Delayed Recall Test, was 57.8%. For cognitive flexibility, 65.7% of participants scored ‘very good’ in the Stroop Test. While only 25.6% of students scored ‘very good’ in Month Backward Test. When the influence of gender was observed, it was found that 67.54% females but only 38.47% of males scored ‘very good’ in the Stroop Test. In contrast, 76.42% males while only 6.46% of females scored ‘good’ in Free Recall Test. CONCLUSION: The result highlights two crucial aspects. One is that improvement is required in the short-term and long-term memory of physical therapy students. Secondly, that females have better cognitive flexibility while males have better memory retention.

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