Everyday Memory Intervention (EMMI)

Georgia Institute of Technology

Status: Completed

Conditions: Aging

Treatments: Behavioral: Everyday Metacognitive Memory Intervention; Behavioral: Memory Strategy Control Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04088136

1R21AG059942-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

H19341

Details and patient eligibility

About

Evaluates an intervention designed to improve everyday memory function, contrasting people receiving the intervention with a group that receives traditional memory strategy training.

Full description

This project seeks to develop and validate a novel approach to training everyday memory functioning in older adults. The approach (1) trains people to use simple but effective memory skills that have broad applicability in everyday life and (2) shapes a set of skills and habits of mind that will increase the likelihood of effective use of skills and memory aids. It is based on a metacognitive perspective on self-regulation in cognitively demanding situations and informed by recent theories about how suboptimal habit patterns can be altered. The approach has not yet been used in an everyday memory intervention in high-functioning, community-dwelling older adults. The proposed research validates ecological momentary assessment methods to get actual behavioral measures of forgetting in everyday life. It then uses these procedures in a randomized experiment that contrasts the everyday memory intervention group with a traditional memory-strategy training group. The hypothesis is that the everyday memory training intervention will reduce everyday memory errors and memory complaints, whereas the memory strategy training will alter strategy use and memory performance, with little cross-over effect. The hypothesized pattern will establish the explicit benefits of our everyday memory intervention procedures and demonstrate the limitation of standard memory training for that purpose.

Enrollment: 68 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 70 to 85 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 70 - 85 years of age
• in fair to good health
• free of major neurocognitive impairment
• English speaking
• endorsed Smartphone and computer users (or willing to learn)

Exclusion criteria

• diagnosis of any major neurological problems (e.g. stroke, Parkinson's disease, dementia)
• 1.5 SD below age-normed mean (or lower) on the TICS
• low computer and smart phone literacy
• and poor self-rated health.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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68 participants in 2 patient groups

Everyday Metacognitive Memory

Experimental group

Description:

Training in techniques for managing memory demands in everyday life

Treatment:

Behavioral: Everyday Metacognitive Memory Intervention

Memory Strategy Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Trains the use of memory strategies for learning new associations and concepts

Treatment:

Behavioral: Memory Strategy Control Intervention