Clinical trial NCT05358145: The Training Effects of Tinkering Activities on Cognitive Flexibility in Older Adults From Communities
Official title: The Training Effects of Tinkering Activities on Cognitive Flexibility in Older Adults From Communities
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Cognitive Training
Keywords: Task-Switching
Electroencephalogram
Cognitive Flexibility
Aging
Brain Imaging
Lead sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
name: National Taiwan University
name: National Taiwan Science Education Center
First posted: 2022-05-03
Enrollment: 118
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 65
Standard ages: OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: Aging has been a serious global-wise concern in public health. In particular, elders face declination of cognitive functions that threaten their quality of life. A good approach to slow down cognitive declination during aging processes is therefore in urgent need. According to the Successful Aging model (Rowe, J.W. and Kahn, R.L) participation in meaningful occupational activity may maintains high cognitive and body function. This sub-project is a part of the larger integrated project that will address the need for cognitive promotion by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults, utilizing the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public recruiting site as well as intervention site. In this sub-project, a 12-week intervention will be carried out with three protocols: 1) Tinkering activities, 2)Controlled Tinkering Activities, and 3) Board Game intervention. Board games serve as a commonly seen cognitive training, with a growing series of literature continuing to support board games being the medium of cognitive promotion. Tinkering activities are primarily used in fields of education that comprise science, art, and technology. Through a series of themes objectives, participants can involve interestingly, creatively, and flexibly in the activity when the participants fulfill the goal with the materials retrievable at the site. The anticipation is that the elders participating in Tinkering activities may increase their cognitive flexibility as the participants involve in the elements hidden within the core of the training, such as problem exploration, active thinking and inference, trial and error, and problem-solving. The investigators target to obtain pre-and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data, including electroencephalogram data in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Literate in Mandarin and Taiwanese
* Willing to participate entirely in this research.
* Age \>65

Exclusion Criteria:

* Participated in cognitive-related training in the past two months.
* Severe impairment of visual or auditory abilities.
* Diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or Dementia
* Severe psychological or behavioral disorder that would seriously interfere with the progress of activity
* History of degenerative cognitive disorder (e.g., acute stroke, traumatic brain injury, unconscious), organic mental disorders, brain dysfunction, or other neurology-related diagnoses.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Changes of Event-related potential component (ERP): P2, N2, P3
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of reaction time and accuracy of task-switching paradigm
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Accuracy in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Number of Categories Completed in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Trials to Complete First Category in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Percent Perseverative Errors in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Failure to Maintain Set in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Changes of University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Geriatric Depression Scale
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Flow Scale
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS)
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Guilford's Alternative Uses Test (GAU)
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Color Trails Test (CTT)
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of University of California, San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA-BRIEF)
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Remote Associates Test
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
measure: Changes of Neural functional activity during inferential processing
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Changes of learning rate during inferential processing
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
measure: Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 12
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Taipei
country: Taiwan
facility: College of Medicine, National Taiwan University
city: Taipei
country: Taiwan
facility: National Taiwan Science Education Center
Study officials:
affiliation: National Taiwan University
name: Hui-Fen Mao, M.S.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: