The Training Effects of Tinkering Activities on Cognitive Flexibility in Older Adults From Communities

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Cognitive Training
• Interventions: Behavioral: Control Tinkering Activities; Behavioral: Board Games Activities; Behavioral: Tinkering Activities

• Registration Number: NCT05358145
• Lead Sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital

Brief Summary

Aging has been a serious global-wise concern in public health. In particular, elders face declination of cognitive functions that threaten their quality of life. A good approach to slow down cognitive declination during aging processes is therefore in urgent need. According to the Successful Aging model (Rowe, J.W. and Kahn, R.L) participation in meaningful occupational activity may maintains high cognitive and body function. This sub-project is a part of the larger integrated project that will address the need for cognitive promotion by conducting cognitive training interventions on community older adults, utilizing the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) as the public recruiting site as well as intervention site. In this sub-project, a 12-week intervention will be carried out with three protocols: 1) Tinkering activities, 2)Controlled Tinkering Activities, and 3) Board Game intervention. Board games serve as a commonly seen cognitive training, with a growing series of literature continuing to support board games being the medium of cognitive promotion. Tinkering activities are primarily used in fields of education that comprise science, art, and technology. Through a series of themes objectives, participants can involve interestingly, creatively, and flexibly in the activity when the participants fulfill the goal with the materials retrievable at the site. The anticipation is that the elders participating in Tinkering activities may increase their cognitive flexibility as the participants involve in the elements hidden within the core of the training, such as problem exploration, active thinking and inference, trial and error, and problem-solving. The investigators target to obtain pre-and post-intervention behavioral and neurophysiological data, including electroencephalogram data in 40 experimental participants, 40 active control participants, and 40 passive control participants over a period of 3 years.

Detailed Description

Not available

Basic Information
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Recruitment & Eligibility
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Study & Design
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Trial Locations

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-02-22
• Study First Submitted: 2022-04-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2022-04-27
• Study First Posted: 2022-05-03
• Status Verified: 2023-11
• Last Update Submitted: 2023-11-14
• Last Update Posted: 2023-11-18
• Primary Completion: 2024-07
• Study Completion: 2024-07

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 216

Inclusion Criteria

• Literate in Mandarin and Taiwanese
• Willing to participate entirely in this research.
• Age >65

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Exclusion Criteria

• Participated in cognitive-related training in the past two months.
• Severe impairment of visual or auditory abilities.
• Diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or Dementia
• Severe psychological or behavioral disorder that would seriously interfere with the progress of activity
• History of degenerative cognitive disorder (e.g., acute stroke, traumatic brain injury, unconscious), organic mental disorders, brain dysfunction, or other neurology-related diagnoses.

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Control Tinkering	Control Tinkering Activities	-
Board Games	Board Games Activities	-
Tinkering	Tinkering Activities	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Changes of Percent Perseverative Errors in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	The concentration of perseverative errors in relation to overall test performance (the number of trials given) multiplied by 100. The less the score, the better the executive function.
Changes of Failure to Maintain Set in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	When a participant makes five or more consecutive correct matches but then makes an error before successfully completing the category, the less the score, the better the executive function.
Changes of Number of Categories Completed in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	The number of sequences of 10 consecutive correct matches (maximum = 6), higher the score, the better the executive function
Changes of reaction time and accuracy of task-switching paradigm	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	The task-switching paradigm will ask the participants to judge whether the number(stimulus) presented is 1) even or odd, OR, 2) more than or less than 5. The switching between these rules will induce a switch cost effect (the time when the rule changes, the reaction time will increase to compensate the cognitive process needed to make the change) if the reaction time decreases after intervention, it implies an improvement.
Changes of Event-related potential component (ERP): P2, N2, P3	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	The EEG data is recorded while the participants are carrying out the task-switching paradigm. The data will then be analyzed in terms of Event-Related Potential(ERP), where the components' changes will be observed in terms of amplitude and latency.
Changes of Accuracy in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Score ranged 0-128, the higher the score, the better the executive function
Changes of Trials to Complete First Category in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Total number of trials to complete first category, the less the score, the better the executive function

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 133. Higher score indicates better processing speed.
Changes of Remote Associates Test	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Score range 0-30. The higher the score, the better the ability of remote associate creativity.
Changes of Neural functional activity during inferential processing	Week 0, Week 12	Participants will undergo a Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task to infer underlying rules that map color configurations of circles in a triangular arrangement to a target color category within as few tries as possible under active or passive conditions. The goal for participants will be to infer the cue-category association rules using as few cues as possible. The primary outcome measure here is the degree of neural response estimate change in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal pre- and post-intervention.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 48. Higher score indicates better visual face memory.
Changes of Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS)	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	It is a 12-item 6-point scale in Likert format, the higher the score, the higher the participants' cognitive flexibility.
Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing	Week 0, Week 12	Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant coefficients of expression of modeled response strategies in the Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task will be assessed.
Changes of Geriatric Depression Scale	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Score ranged 0-15, the higher the score, the severe the depressive symptoms.
Changes of Flow Scale	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Score ranged 1-5, higher the score, the better the flow experience the participant had.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 75. Higher score indicates better verbal episodic memory.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 64. Higher score indicates better visual memory and learning.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better spatial memory.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better auditory memory.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 66. Higher score indicates better vocabulary.
Changes of University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	score ranged 20-80, the higher the greater sense of loneliness in the participants.
Changes of Color Trails Test (CTT)	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Measures in time, error, cues, near miss, and color error. The less time, error, cues, near miss and color error the participants take, the better the executive function, alternate and sustain attention.
Changes of University of California, San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA-BRIEF)	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Score range 0-100, the higher the score, the better the function of activities of daily living.
Changes of learning rate during inferential processing	Week 0, Week 12	Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant number of trials to criterion in the Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 104. Higher score indicates better visual memory. For II, recall score range is 0-104; recognition score range is 0-48.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 68. Higher score indicates better visual processing.
Changes of Guilford's Alternative Uses Test (GAU)	Week 0, Week 12, Week 36	Scoring in terms of originality, fluency, elaboration and flexibility. The higher the score the better the creativity and divergent thinking.
Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing	Week 0, Week 12	Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant overall accuracy in identifying latent rules in the Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task.
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 36. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning. For II, recall score range is 0 to 8; recognition score range is 0 to 24.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 22. Higher score indicates better mathematical computation ability.
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning	Week 0, Week 12	Score range 0 - 26. Higher score indicates better reasoning.

Trial Locations

Locations (2)

National Taiwan Science Education Center; 🇨🇳 Taipei, Taiwan

College of Medicine, National Taiwan University; 🇨🇳 Taipei, Taiwan