Training working memory updating in Parkinson’s disease: A randomised controlled trial

ABSTRACT

Frontostriatal dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease (PD) increases the risk for working memory (WM) impairment and depression, calling for counteractive measures. Computerised cognitive rehabilitation is a promising option, but targeted training protocols are lacking and lab-based training can be demanding due to the repeated visits. This study tested the feasibility and efficacy of home-based computerised training targeting mainly WM updating in PD. Fifty-two cognitively well-preserved PD patients were randomised to a WM training group and an active control group for five weeks of training (three 30-min sessions per week). WM training included three computerised adaptive WM tasks (two updating, one maintenance). The outcomes were examined pre- and post-training with trained and untrained WM tasks, tasks tapping other cognitive domains, and self-ratings of executive functioning and depression. Home-based training was feasible for the patients. The training group improved particularly on the updating training tasks, and showed posttest improvement on untrained WM tasks structurally similar to the trained ones. Moreover, their depression scores decreased compared to the controls. Our study indicates that patients with mild-to-moderate PD can self-administer home-based computerised WM training, and that they yield a similar transfer pattern to untrained WM tasks as has been observed in healthy older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Parkinson’s disease
• Working memory training
• Transfer
• Updating
• Depression

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the patients with Parkinson’s disease who participated in the study. We also would like to thank Jussi Jylkkä for his help with the statistical analyses, and Daniel Wärnå for programming the cognitive tasks.

Disclosure statement

Juha O. Rinne serves as a consultant for CRST Ltd (Clinical Research Services Turku).

Notes

1 Note that the healthy controls completed exactly the same pretest battery as the PD patients did at baseline.

Additional information

Funding

Matti Laine received funding from the Academy of Finland (Grant No. 260276) and the Åbo Akademi University Endowment (grant to the BrainTrain project). Juha O. Rinne reports grants from the Academy of Finland (Grant No. 310962), grants from the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, and grants from Turku University Hospital (Grant No. 13463).