Selective reminding of prospective memory in Multiple Sclerosis

ABSTRACT

Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with prospective memory (PM) deficits, which may increase the risk of poor functional/health outcomes such as medication non-adherence. This study examined the potential benefits of selective reminding to enhance PM functioning in persons with MS.

Method: Twenty-one participants with MS and 22 healthy adults (HA) underwent a neuropsychological battery including a Selective Reminding PM (SRPM) experimental procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to either: (1) a selective reminding condition in which participants learn (to criterion) eight prospective memory tasks in a Selective Reminding format; or (2) a single trial encoding condition (1T).

Results: A significant interaction was demonstrated, with MS participants receiving greater benefit than HAs from the SR procedure in terms of PM performance. Across diagnostic groups, participants in the SR conditions (vs. 1T conditions) demonstrated significantly better PM performance. Individuals with MS were impaired relative to HAs in the 1T condition, but performance was statistically comparable in the SR condition.

Conclusions: This preliminary study suggests that selective reminding can be used to enhance PM cue detection and retrieval in MS. The extent to which selective reminding of PM is effective in naturalistic settings and for health-related behaviours in MS remains to be determined.

KEYWORDS:

• Selective reminding
• prospective memory
• functional neuropsychology
• multiple sclerosis
• rehabilitation neuropsychology

Acknowledgements

The authors (in particular, JDM) gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dissertation Committee members Tania Giovannetti, Mary Spiers, Jennifer Gallo, Drexel University faculty and community members Douglas Chute, Jocelyn Ang, and Chelsea Morse, University of Washington faculty members Kevin Alschuler and Myron Goldberg, and all of the participants who made this research possible. No external financial support was used in the completion of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.