NCT01948089

Exploring the Long-term Effects of Cognitive Exercise on Cognition After Stroke

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 2 (actual)
• Sponsor: Nova Scotia Health Authority · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This project will investigate the effectiveness of an intensive and focused working memory training program for chronic stroke patients. The investigators hypothesize that working memory training will be an effective method of improving working memory and related cognitive and behavioural functions in this population.

Detailed description

Vascular cognitive impairment due to vascular disease and stroke frequently includes problems with attention, working memory and executive functions (e.g., monitoring, planning, and organization). These deficits are common - 32-73%, and chronic, and interfere with a patients response to rehabilitation, independence in activities of daily living, community re-integration, and overall quality of life after stroke. Attention, memory and executive function impairments can adversely affect the ability to relearn various skills. Cognitive impairments and their impacts on other components of functioning not only impact on the individual, but can also adversely affect the family via increases in caregiver distress and burden. Thus, the presence of cognitive impairment has wide-reaching impact and deserves effective and consistent intervention similar to the attention devoted to improving function in physical domains. Cognitive training can improve cognitive function, particularly in those areas known to involved in vascular cognitive impairment, i.e., attentional and executive function. Accumulating evidence indicates that computer-based training can improve cognitive skills in healthy older adults as well as in clinical populations. Attention and working memory training has also been shown to be effective in patients in the chronic phase post stroke. The investigators propose that specific cognitive training to improve working memory could provide direct benefit to chronic stroke patients. Promising interventions focused on intensive and direct working memory training are emerging and have been shown to generalize to other cognitive domains, such as fluid intelligence.

Conditions

• Chronic Phase Stroke Patients

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Variable Structured Cognitive Exercise	This exercise uses the n-back paradigm in which participants are asked to keep track of one or two series of sequentially presented auditory and/or visual stimuli in order to detect targets that match those presented n-items ago in the sequence. The task begins at 1-back (i.e., watch for targets that match those just presented) and gets harder (e.g., watch for matches with items presented 2 or 3 items ago in the sequence) as performance improves. The stimuli will vary weekly, and include varying auditory letters or words, or varying visual patterns or faces.
BEHAVIORAL	Constant Structured Cognitive Exercise	This exercise uses the n-back paradigm in which participants are asked to keep track of one or two series of sequentially presented auditory and/or visual stimuli in order to detect targets that match those presented n-items ago in the sequence. The task begins at 1-back (i.e., watch for targets that match those just presented) and gets harder (e.g., watch for matches with items presented 2 or 3 items ago in the sequence) as performance improves. The stimuli will remain constant throughout the 10 week intervention

Timeline

• Start date: 2013-09-01
• Primary completion: 2014-11-01
• Completion: 2014-11-01
• First posted: 2013-09-23
• Last updated: 2015-09-18

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada