IMPACT OF ESSENTIAL OIL OF HISSORUS OFFICINALIS ON THE PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL STATE AND MENTAL CAPACITY OF THE ELDERLY

The objective of the research was to study the effect of common hyssop essential oil on the psychoemotional state and mental performance of elderly and senile people. Materials and methods. The study included 280 women aged 60–85 years. During the study, the subjects were in darkened rooms at rest in groups of 10–20 people. For participants in the control groups we played a psychorelaxation audio recording lasting 10, 20 or 30 minutes. For the experimental groups we sprayed common hyssop essential oil in a concentration of 1 mg/m3 for 10, 20 or 30 minutes in the room and simultaneously played a psychorelaxation audio recording. The state of the subjects before and after the procedures in the control and experimental groups was assessed using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Dembo-Rubinstein self-assessment test in our modification, correction task, and the word recognition test with missing letters. The obtained data were statistically processed using the Student’s t-test for dependent and unconjugated samples. The component composition of essential oil was determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry using a hardware and software complex based on a chromatograph «Chromatek-Crystal 5000.2» equipped with a mass spectrometric detector. Results. It is shown that respiratory effects of essential oil of common hyssop (exposure 10, 20 or 30 minutes) when its concentration in air 1 mg/m3 causes a significant improvement in the emotional state of the elderly (based on Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Dembo-Rubinstein self-assessment test in our modification). In the pair «anxiety-depression» it has a more pronounced positive effect on anxiety – a statistically significant decrease in the level at all durations of the aroma effect. According to the indicator of depression, a statistically significant decrease was observed only with a 20-minute aroma effect. At the same time, in the state self-assessment test, the subjects positively assessed the change in their state in all indicators of psychoemotional state and tone for all duration of the aroma session, which allows us to talk about hyssop essential oil as a euphoric factor, possibly with a certain decrease in the criticality of perception. Considering the more objective nature of the assessment on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the presence in the self-assessment test of parameters that respond to depression, we can say that common hyssop essential oil is a euphoric factor that reduces the criticality, objectivity of the subjects’ self-assessment of their condition. There was no significant effect of common hyssop essential oil on mental performance in both complex (recognition of words with missing letters) and simple work (correction task).