Enhancing Cognitive Control Abilities Using Mobile Technology in a Senior Living Community (ACCT)

University of California San Francisco (UCSF)

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Aging; Cognitive Change

Treatments: Behavioral: Adaptive Cognitive Control Trainer (ACCT); Behavioral: Active Control App

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04905849

R21AG058896 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this study is to test the feasibility of launching a personalized digital health assessment and remediation program for the older adults in senior living communities based upon an initial characterization of these abilities. Evidence of feasibility here using these unique methodological approaches would provide empirical evidence supporting the basis for a larger-scale implementation of such digital health technologies into less controlled senior settings.

Enrollment: 12 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 50+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Must be living at a Senior Living Community
• have own iPad and/or smartphone,
• native-English speaker.

Participation across a spectrum of cognitive abilities is desired for this study, specifically for older adults in a community setting.

Exclusion criteria

• Do not have any physical or cognitive limitations that would clearly prevent them from utilizing these applications as intended

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Sequential Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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12 participants in 2 patient groups

Adaptive Cognitive Control Trainer (ACCT)

Experimental group

Description:

There are three modules within the game, each training a different aspect of cognitive control (attention, goal management, working memory): a visual search task for attention abilities, a spatial span task for working memory, and a task switching paradigm for goal management abilities. There are also 3 different levels of difficulty associated with each module; advancing to the next level delivers an advanced challenge that enhances the difficulty in performing the given cognitive task. Participants advance to the next level of difficulty following 6 training sessions occurring over 2 weeks, with the total training experience being 6 weeks of training (3 days/week), with each training session lasting 36 minutes (not including self-paced breaks).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Adaptive Cognitive Control Trainer (ACCT)

Active Control Group

Active Comparator group

Description:

An active control application will be used for this arm. The total training experience here will also be for 6 weeks (3 days/week), with each training session lasting \~30 minutes (not including self-paced breaks). Here an app that is matched in terms of expectancy of benefits compared to our training groups will be determined by questioning 100 naïve individuals to predict their expected improvement on each cognitive domain across a multitude of possible applications.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Active Control App