Memory for Action in Neurological Patients (EMBODIMENT)

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Alzheimer Disease; Parkinson Disease

Treatments: Behavioral: Cognitive tests

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02844855

1608068

2016-A00891-50 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Memory for action is especially important in everyday life although current literature is not very abundant. The enactment effect (i.e. better memory for performed actions than for verbally encoded sentences) is usually described as a robust effect in aging and can be found in many diseases. Although the enactment effect has been studied for three decades, there is still no consensus on how it enhances memory. Therefore, in order to gain additional insight into the representational basis of the enactment effect, in the present study, the investigators propose to test neurological patients. The investigators suggested that memory for action should be better than memory for verbally encoded information in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

If patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) have no cognitive assessment during the last 6 months, then they will realize different tests: MMSE (1), HAD (2), a cognitive assessment (3); (4); BREF (5); Assessment of apraxia, (6). Controls will perform the same tests to verify that they have no cognitive impairment. Then, two experimental conditions will be presented in all patients and controls: a first in which participants will have to name drawings (verbal learning) and a second in which they will have to reproduce an action associated with drawings (action learning). Immediately after this learning phase, a recognition task will be available and therefore participants will have to recognize drawings that had been presented previously. The main criteria used in the statistical analysis will be the correct recognition score.

Full description

1. = Folstein et al., 1975,
2. = Zigmond & Snaith, 1983,
3. = Dubois et al., 2002;
4. = Godefroy et al., 2008;
5. = Dubois et Pillon, 2000;
6. = Mahieux-Laurent, 2009.

Enrollment: 83 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 55 to 80 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria for 3 arms:

• Patient affiliated to a social security system
• Age between 55 and 80 years
• Normal vision and hearing or successfully corrected
• French mother tongue
• Signature of consent by participants

Specific criteria for inclusion of MA patients:

• Probable AD diagnosis made by a neurologist (McKhann et al., 2011)
• Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE): score > 22
• Stable treatment for two months minimum.

Specific criteria for inclusion of PD patients:

• PD diagnosed by a neurologist (Postuma et al., 2015)
• Stable treatment for two months minimum.
• Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE): score > 27
• Under dopaminergic treatment

Exclusion Criteria for 3 arms:

• Other neurological or psychiatric history
• Anxiety and depressive symptoms (assessed by the scale of depression-anxiety HAD; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983)
• Inability to communicate
• Significant impairment of judgment
• Delusional or psychotic state

Criteria common for non-inclusion of AD and PD patients:

• Other neurological or psychiatric history
• Anxiety and depressive symptoms (assessed by the scale of depression-anxiety HAD; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983)
• Inability to communicate
• Significant impairment of judgment
• Delusional or psychotic state

Criteria for non-inclusion of PD patients:

• Motor fluctuations

Criteria for non-inclusion of controls:

• Psychiatric or neurological disorders
• Anxiety and depressive symptoms (assessed by the scale of depression-anxiety HAD; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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83 participants in 3 patient groups

patients with Alzheimer disease

Active Comparator group

Description:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests Only patients with Alzheimer disease will be included in this arm. Patients will perform different tasks : MMSE, (Folstein et al., 1975), HAD (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Zigmond \& Snaith, 1983), a cognitive assessment (the 5 words test, Dubois et al., 2002; Trail Making test, Godefroy et al., 2008; BREF, Dubois et Pillon, 2000; Assessment of apraxia, Mahieux-Laurent, 2009) + the experimental task (verbal learning and action learning).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests

patients with Parkinson disease

Active Comparator group

Description:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests Only patients with Parkinson disease will be included in this arm. Patients will perform different tasks : MMSE, (Folstein et al., 1975), HAD (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Zigmond \& Snaith, 1983), a cognitive assessment (the 5 words test, Dubois et al., 2002; Trail Making test, Godefroy et al., 2008; BREF, Dubois et Pillon, 2000; Assessment of apraxia, Mahieux-Laurent, 2009) + the experimental task (verbal learning and action learning).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests

healthy controls

Sham Comparator group

Description:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests Only patients with healthy controls will be included in this arm. Controls will perform different tasks : MMSE, (Folstein et al., 1975), HAD (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Zigmond \& Snaith, 1983), a cognitive assessment (the 5 words test, Dubois et al., 2002; Trail Making test, Godefroy et al., 2008; BREF, Dubois et Pillon, 2000; Assessment of apraxia, Mahieux-Laurent, 2009) + the experimental task (verbal learning and action learning).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive tests