Preventing Alzheimer's With Cognitive Training

Description

Dementia is the most expensive medical condition in the US and increases in prevalence with age. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia, and is indicative of higher risk for dementia. In addition to the obvious health and quality-of-life ramifications of dementia, there are high direct (e.g., subsidizing residential care needs) and indirect (e.g., lost productivity of family caregivers) economic costs. Implementing interventions to prevent MCI and dementia among older adults is of critical importance to health and maintained quality-of-life for millions of Americans. Recent data analyses from the Advanced Cognitive Training in Vital Elderly study (ACTIVE) indicate that a specific cognitive intervention, speed of processing training (SPT), significantly delays the incidence of cognitive impairment across 10 years. The primary contribution of the proposed research will be the determination of whether this cognitive training technique successfully delays the onset of clinically defined MCI or dementia across three years.

Conditions

Age-related Cognitive Decline, Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias

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Study Overview

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Study Details

Study overview

Dementia is the most expensive medical condition in the US and increases in prevalence with age. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia, and is indicative of higher risk for dementia. In addition to the obvious health and quality-of-life ramifications of dementia, there are high direct (e.g., subsidizing residential care needs) and indirect (e.g., lost productivity of family caregivers) economic costs. Implementing interventions to prevent MCI and dementia among older adults is of critical importance to health and maintained quality-of-life for millions of Americans. Recent data analyses from the Advanced Cognitive Training in Vital Elderly study (ACTIVE) indicate that a specific cognitive intervention, speed of processing training (SPT), significantly delays the incidence of cognitive impairment across 10 years. The primary contribution of the proposed research will be the determination of whether this cognitive training technique successfully delays the onset of clinically defined MCI or dementia across three years.

Cognitive Training to Reduce Incidence of Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults

Preventing Alzheimer's With Cognitive Training

Condition
Age-related Cognitive Decline
Intervention / Treatment

-

Contacts and Locations

Gainesville

University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States, 32611

Jacksonville

University of Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, United States, 32209

Jacksonville

University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, United States, 32224

Sarasota

The Roskamp Institute, Sarasota, Florida, United States, 34243

Tampa

University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, 33620

Durham

Duke Health, Durham, North Carolina, United States, 27705

Seneca

Clemson University Institute for Engaged Aging, Seneca, South Carolina, United States, 29672

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

For general information about clinical research, read Learn About Studies.

Eligibility Criteria

  • * Be age 65 or older at time of consent
  • * Have ability to speak and understand English or Spanish
  • * Report adequate sensorimotor capacity to perform the computer exercises
  • * Report adequate visual capacity to read from a computer screen at a typical viewing distance
  • * Show adequate auditory capacity to understand conversational speech
  • * Show adequate motor capacity to touch a computer screen or control a computer mouse.
  • * Have no evidence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or dementia, as assessed by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score \>=26.
  • * Have adequate mental health (no self-reported diagnoses of mental illness that would interfere with ability to comply with study procedures or benefit from intervention)
  • * Wiling to complete all study activities
  • * Ability to understand study procedures and comply with them for the length of the study
  • * Currently enrolled in another randomized clinical trial, treatment trial, or another research study that assesses cognition
  • * Previous participation in a cognitive training study
  • * Self-reported vision, hearing, or motor difficulties that would interfere with the ability to complete the study interventions
  • * Self-reported diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment, dementia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumor, or a neurological disorder that affects cognition or would interfere with the ability to benefit from the study intervention (e.g., Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis), or any other unstable medical conditions that is predisposing to imminent cognitive or functional decline (e.g., congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder dependent on oxygen, or undergoing chemotherapy or radiation).
  • * Self-reported use of medications typically prescribed for dementia such as: Namenda, Memantine, Namzaric, Donepezil, Aricept, Rivastigmine, Exelon, Razadyne, Galantamine, Reminyl, aducanumab, Aduhlem.
  • * Completion of 10 or more hours of a computerized cognitive training program in the last 5 years such as: Lumosity, Posit Science Brain Fitness, InSight, or Brain HQ, Lace, CogMed, CogniFit, Happy Neuron, Elevate, or Dakim
  • * Severe depressive symptoms (Geriatric Depression Scale score \>=5)

Ages Eligible for Study

65 Years to

Sexes Eligible for Study

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Collaborators and Investigators

University of South Florida,

Study Record Dates

2026-01-31