A Group Study on the Effects of a Short Multi-Domain Cognitive Training in Healthy Elderly Italian People

NCT ID: NCT03771131

Last Updated: 2018-12-10

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 108 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2013-12-01
• Study Completion Date: 2015-01-01

Brief Summary

Alongside physiological cognitive ageing, nowadays there is an alarming increase in the incidence of dementia that requires communities to invest in its prevention. The engagement in cognitively stimulating activities and strong social networks have been identified among those protective factors promoting successful cognitive ageing. One aspect regarding cognitive stimulation concerns the relevance of the frequency of an external intervention. For these reasons, the aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a 3-month multi-domain cognitive training program, administered once per week in a group of healthy elderly aged over 60 years old. Their results obtained on a series of neuropsychological tests, both pre- (t0) and post-training (t1), were compared with those of a passive control group who did not receive the cognitive training.

Detailed Description

Participants were assigned to the experimental or control group based on their time of application to the program. Both experimental and control group underwent a neuropsychological assessment to investigate different cognitive domains, before and after (~3 months) the training program. Based on the scores obtained during the preliminary neuropsychological assessment, the participants of the experimental training group were divided into small subgroups (ranging from 8 to 12 subjects) to further address individualization of training (i.e. level of difficulty of the exercises proposed). The experimental group attended weekly sessions of the multi-domain cognitive training. Each session lasted around one hour and the overall duration of the training was of 3 months, for a total of 13 sessions. To promote improvement transfer to everyday life, some of the exercises proposed were ecological in their nature, in that, they asked participants to solve tasks that recalled everyday situations (such as remembering names or road maps). Furthermore, throughout the training, approximately once every two sessions brief psycho-educational interventions were provided.

Conditions

Age-related Cognitive Decline

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Experimental group

Group receiving the multi-domain cognitive training

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Multi-domain cognitive training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Weekly sessions of multi-domain cognitive training, each lasting around one hour for an overall duration of the training of 3 months (13 sessions)

Control group

Passive control group

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Multi-domain cognitive training

Weekly sessions of multi-domain cognitive training, each lasting around one hour for an overall duration of the training of 3 months (13 sessions)

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Age over 60 years

Exclusion Criteria

• Negative anamnesis for neurological and/or psychiatric diseases
• No suspected cognitive impairment as assessed during the pre-training neuropsychological testing (>2 pathological scores)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 60 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 90 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Milano Bicocca

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Roberta Daini

Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

University of Milan-Bicocca

Milan, , Italy

Countries

Italy

References

Tagliabue CF, Guzzetti S, Gualco G, Boccolieri G, Boccolieri A, Smith S, Daini R. A group study on the effects of a short multi-domain cognitive training in healthy elderly Italian people. BMC Geriatr. 2018 Dec 27;18(1):321. doi: 10.1186/s12877-018-1014-x.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 30587151 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

DD

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id