Online Cognitive Rehabilitation of Executive Dysfunction in Nonamnestic MCI

Baycrest

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Nonamnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment; Mental Disorder; Cognitive Disorder; Cognitive Dysfunction; Cognitive Impairment, Mild; Neurocognitive Disorders

Treatments: Behavioral: Online Goal Management Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04503798

#08-53

Details and patient eligibility

About

Nonamnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI) is a prodromal state characterized by deficits in executive functioning, a collection of higher-order abilities involved in organization, planning, inhibition, and complex reasoning. Research shows that individuals with naMCI have an increased risk of developing non-Alzheimer's dementia such as frontotemporal dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies, which pose substantial personal and societal costs. Accordingly, interventions that can successfully slow down or reverse the course of naMCI are needed.

Goal Management Training (GMT) is a cognitive rehabilitation platform that has been studied extensively, applied clinically, and manualized into kits for clinicians (Levine et al., 2000; Levine et al., 2007; Levine et al., 2011; Stamenova & Levine, 2019). The purpose of GMT is to train individuals to periodically "STOP" what they are doing, attend to task goals, evaluate their performance, and monitor or check outcomes as they proceed. Recently, an online version of GMT has been developed and validated in order to circumvent barriers to attending in-person sessions.

The purpose of the current study is to determine if the online version of GMT is effective at improving self-reported executive dysfunction in individuals diagnosed with naMCI against a control group that is receiving treatment-as-usual from their care provider. It is hypothesized that, compared to the control group, individuals receiving GMT will report a decrease in executive function deficits.

Enrollment: 50 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of nonamnestic mild cognitive impairment
• Available to participate in all testing and intervention sessions
• Access to a computer
• Computer familiarity
• Normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing

Exclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of amnestic mild cognitive impairment or dementia
• Moderate to severe affective impairment defined by score above cut-off for depression on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Online Goal Management Training (GMT)

Experimental group

Description:

The online version of GMT with a therapist on the back-end monitoring progress and giving feedback throughout the program. Online GMT takes 5-9 weeks (self-paced) to complete 9 modules involving instructional video with interactive content, practice of cognitive strategies through games, and between-module exercises.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Online Goal Management Training

Treatment-as-usual control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants randomized to this arm will receive no additional information or access to the intervention program. They will continue to receive treatment-as-usual from their care providers.