Rehabilitating Unilateral Neglect Using Spatial Working Memory Training

NCT02608190 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: Danckert
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 20
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Purpose: Stroke is a common cause of death and disability in Canada. Injury to the right hemisphere of the brain and the parietal cortex in particular, is common and results in a disorder known as 'neglect' in 40% to 95% of patients. These patients fail to attend to or respond to events occurring in left space; the disorder is devastating for the patient and their caregivers with the patient becoming dependent on assistance for most activities of daily life (ADLs). The project will implement two visual working memory (VWM) training programs to explore the influence of VWM training on neglect symptoms as well as activities of daily life. Hypothesis: It is hypothesised that SWM training protocols will lead to improvements of neglect symptoms as well as improvement in ADLs. The project will develop a novel rehabilitation strategy for treating the neglect syndrome. Evidence from research in healthy participants employing video games to improve cognition along with research using working memory training protocols showing a broad range of benefits accruing to both trained and untrained tasks, suggests that the investigators approach has great potential to improve the core deficits of the neglect syndrome. Thus, WM training represents a promising avenue for rehabilitating neglect patients who demonstrate core deficits in both spatial attention and VWM to be highly interrelated functions.

Conditions

Hemispatial Neglect

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Improvement on behavioural tests

  Performance on behavioural tests

  Measured at time zero (after intervention), 2 and 4 weeks post and 3 months post intervention.

• Improvement on self-report measures

  Changes to self-reported function in activities of daily living

  Measured at time zero (after intervention), 2 and 4 weeks post and 3 months post intervention.

Study Arms (2)

Active training

EXPERIMENTAL

Patients will undergo active working memory training (see description of protocol).

Behavioral: Working memory training

Passive training

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Patients will undergo passive working memory training (see description of protocol).

Behavioral: Working memory training

Interventions

Working memory training BEHAVIORAL

See protocol

Active training; Passive training

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• stroke presence of neglect symptoms

You may not qualify if:

• any other neurological or psychiatric syndrome
• any incapacity to perform the tasks

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Waterloo: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Waterloo

Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Perceptual Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• James Danckert, PhD

  University of Waterloo

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: TRIPLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT, CARE PROVIDER, INVESTIGATOR
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 11, 2015
• First Posted: November 18, 2015
• Study Start: November 1, 2015
• Primary Completion: July 1, 2019
• Study Completion: July 1, 2019
• Last Updated: July 29, 2019

Record last verified: 2019-07

Locations

CA (1)