Clinical trial NCT04195230: Cognitive Multi-Tasking Training in Healthy Older Adults
Official title: Cognitive Training in a Multi-task Daily Life Task: a Feasibility Study in Healthy Older Adults
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Age-related Cognitive Decline
Keywords: Web-based Cognitive Training
Executive Functions
Attention
Multi-tasking
Aging
Healthy Adults
Lead sponsor: Columbia University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2019-12-11
Enrollment: 24
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 60
Maximum age (years): 75
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: This study evaluated the feasibility of a remote web-based ecological cognitive training protocol to healthy older adults. The training protocol involves 5 training sessions.

Detailed description: Previous research demonstrated the relevance in training cognitive abilities that typically decline with age, such as those associated with executive control (e.g., abstract thinking, selective and divided attention, planning, task-switching and inhibitory control). The aim of the present study is to investigate the feasibility of a web-based cognitive training focused on executive control to cognitively healthy older adults. The participants will undergo the web-training in a daily type situation of meal preparation (i.e., Breakfast Game). The training protocol combines the tasks of table setting and cooking in a multi-tasking fashion. In some sessions Emphasis Change approach will be apply to the training, in order to assess it feasibility and potential effects in optimizing the performance. In addition, participants will undergo a brief web-based cognitive evaluation before and after training. If feasible, the investigators protocol will allow training older adults in critical cognitive skills for daily life situations. The web-based training is an advancement since it can be delivered at-home, remotely supervised, and is easily scalable. Recently, remote interventions have been particularly relevant to older adults due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which may limit in-person research participation.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Cognitively healthy older adults

Exclusion Criteria:

* Low test scores (below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment - MoCA)
* Presence of certain medical conditions (i.e., major neurological or psychiatric disorder, or a medical condition that may impact cognitive functioning).
* Subjects which English is not the primary language, or with lack of capacity to consent will not be enrolled.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Cooking Time Discrepancy Scores
timeFrame: Up to 3 weeks
measure: Change in Range of Stop Times Score
timeFrame: Up to 3 weeks
measure: Change in the Number of Tables Set Score
timeFrame: Up to 3 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Post-training feasibility questionnaire
timeFrame: Within one week after the intervention
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: Columbia University
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: Columbia University
name: Yaakov Stern, Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: