NCT06110858

Efficacy of Tinkering Activities in Individuals With Subjective Cognitive Decline

The Efficacy of Tinkering Activity Based Cognitive Intervention to Improve Executive Function in Individuals With Subjective Cognitive Decline：A Pilot Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 12 (actual)
• Sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Given that preventing and delaying the onset of dementia is a crucial public health policy issues worldwide, it is essential to develop effective interventions and implement early interventions before the onset of dementia. Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) is considered the earliest manifestation of dementia and individuals with SCD may have a higher risk for future cognitive decline and dementia. Despite performing normally on objective cognitive tests, individuals with SCD have been found to exhibit worse performance on some cognitive domains, including executive functions, compared to those without SCD. Executive Functions (EFs) refer to a set of cognitive processes that include working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, planning, problem solving and reasoning, enabling individuals to achieve goals by controlling and regulating thoughts and behaviors. EFs are important for our daily functioning and their decline can negatively impact an individual's quality of life. However, to our knowledge, there is limited research on maintaining or improving EFs in individuals with SCD. Tinkering Activity (TA) is a hands-on cognitive activity that emphasizes process of problem-solving, active engagement and open-ended exploration, which challenges EFs. In addition, previous research has shown the benefits of TA for community-dwelling older adults. Therefore, the goal of this clinical tri is to examine the efficacy of TA based cognitive intervention in enhancing EFs in individuals with SCD. This study will be a one-group pretest-posttest design. Twelve to fifteen individuals with SCD will be recruited from the communities. All participants will receive 12 intervention sessions, each lasting 2 hours, with two sessions per week for 6 weeks. All participants will be assessed before and after the intervention.

Conditions

• Cognitive Training
• Subjective Cognitive Decline

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Tinkering Activities	Tinkering activities encompass elements of science, art and technology. They emphasize that learning is not simply about teachers imparting knowledge to students, but rather about students actively constructing knowledge themselves. Tinkering activities are characterized by three key elements: active engagement, open-ended exploration and problem-solving. In such activities, participants are provided with products without telling the steps. They are then encouraged to attempt creating it on their own. During this hands-on learning process, participants need to flexibly change their mindset, think outside the box and tackle emerging problems, which challenge their executive functions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-11-13
• Primary completion: 2024-08-29
• Completion: 2024-08-29
• First posted: 2023-11-01
• Last updated: 2024-09-20

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Taiwan