We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Cognitive Training in a Large Group of Patients Affected by Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease can have Long-Lasting Effects: A Case-Control Study.
- Authors
Cavallo, Marco; Zanalda, Enrico; Johnston, Harriet; Bonansea, Alessandro; Angilletta, Chiara
- Abstract
Introduction: Cognitive training in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has recently started to demonstrate its efficacy. We used our ‘puzzle-like’ task (GEO) as training for a large group of early-stage AD patients, to detect its effects over time.Method: AD patients (N = 40) and healthy controls (N = 40) were involved. Participants were administered the Geographical Exercises for cognitive Optimization (GEO) task. Participants underwent individual sessions with GEO three times a week for 2 months, and then their performance was recorded again. Lastly, at the 12-month follow-up the GEO task was administered for the last time.Results: Patients’ scores were significantly worse than controls’ scores only on a few neuropsychological tests. We ran a repeated measures GLM by considering groups’ performance on the GEO task at the assessment points. Results showed a significant main effect of group, and a significant effect of the interaction between group and time: patients’ performances both at the end of the training and at the follow-up were virtually identical to controls’ performances.Conclusions: Patients effectively acquired new procedural abilities, and their achievements were stable at follow-up. This study suggests the GEO is a useful strategy for cognitive training in AD, and should prompt further investigations about the degree of generalisability of patients’ acquired skills.
- Subjects
COGNITIVE training; ALZHEIMER'S disease; CASE-control method; COGNITIVE ability; PUZZLES
- Publication
Brain Impairment (Cambridge University Press), 2016, Vol 17, Issue 2, p182
- ISSN
1443-9646
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/BrImp.2016.2