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Abstract
Prospective memory (PM), persisting and disabling problem following acquired brain injury (ABI). It is widely accepted that compensatory strategies are the treatment of choice in the rehabilitation of PM deficits. The advent of new technologies has broadened the array of external memory aids to include potentially useful personal digital assistants (PDAs) in alleviating PM deficits. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of an unmodified off-the-shelf PDA (Palm IIIe®) in compensating for everyday PM problems. Five participants with ABI were trained to programme the PDA to prompt them with an audible cue and on-screen message at appropriate times. Seven personally relevant PM tasks were set up weekly to measure the usefulness of the PDA as compared to relying on memory alone. An A-B quasi-experimental design was employed which consisted of two phases: the A (memory only) baseline phase and the B (PDA strategy) intervention phase. Task performance was compared between phases A and B. All participants performed significantly better during the two weeks in which they used the PDA (Z = –2.02, p<0.05) demonstrating its efficacy in reducing PM failures. The limitations of the PDA and a range of possible solutions to improve its efficiency are discussed including strategies around delayed-execute PM tasks.