Activities for Cognitive Enhancement of Seniors

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Aging
• Interventions: Behavioral: Tai Chi; Behavioral: Comparison; Behavioral: Successful aging; Behavioral: Guided autobiography; Behavioral: Qigong; Behavioral: Combination

• Registration Number: NCT01094509
• Lead Sponsor: Stanford University

Brief Summary

Cognitive aging and cognitive decline are important public health concerns in an aging US population. The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trail among healthy older adults to assess effects of several innovative activities on remediation of age-related cognitive decline.

Detailed Description

ACE-Seniors is designed as a single-site trial of four randomly assigned interventions, Tai Chi exercise, autobiographical writing, both Tai Chi and autobiography (dual intervention), and general health education. Participants are relatively healthy adults aged 70 years or older, who are not regular practitioners of Tai Chi or regular writers. They are without medical or neurological disorders that would substantially limit the ability to participate in study interventions, without dementia or mild cognitive impairment, relatively sedentary, able to walk unassisted, and able to score 4 or better on the Short Physical Performance Battery. Interventions are administered over a 6 month period of time, with similar exposure times among the four groups. The prespecified primary endpoint is derived from a composite neuropsychological measure, based on three tests of executive function and three tests of episodic memory. The planned sample size is 96 (24 per group). Intention-to-treat analysis will include all eligible participants who complete baseline assessments.

Basic Information
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Recruitment & Eligibility
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Study & Design
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Trial Locations

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2010-03
• Study First Submitted: 2010-03-25
• Study First Submitted QC: 2010-03-26
• Study First Posted: 2010-03-29
• Primary Completion: 2012-07
• Study Completion: 2013-12
• Status Verified: 2014-11
• Last Update Submitted: 2014-11-18
• Last Update Posted: 2014-11-20

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 175

Inclusion Criteria

• 70 years of age or older.
• No other household member already enrolled.
• In reasonably good health: no serious cognitive problem; free of any condition that would limit your ability to participate in Tai Chi classes (a moderate intensity exercise), in Qigong exercises, in a writing program, or in a seminar series.
• Not presently engaged in a regular exercise program; not presently engaged in Tai Chi Qigong or another form of Eastern exercise; and not a regular writer.
• Not now engaged in research to enhance cognitive skills.
• Willing to travel to Stanford for ACE-Seniors program classes. Planning to be in the area during most of the coming year;
• Willing to be assigned randomly (by chance) to one of the ACE-Senior activities.

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Exclusion Criteria

• Failure to meet inclusion criteria.

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Tai Chi	Tai Chi	Tai Chi exercises
Comparison	Comparison	No assigned experimental activity (exploratory, not part of the original protocol, added to gain experience with a placebo comparator)
Successful aging	Successful aging	Seminars on the theme of successful aging
Guided autobiography	Guided autobiography	Autobiographical writing during class sessions and at home
Qigong	Qigong	Qigong exercises (exploratory, not part of the original protocol, added to gain experience with this intervention)
Combination	Combination	Combination of Tai Chi exercises and autobiographical writing

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Cognitive (executive function and episodic memory)	6 and 12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Other cognitive measures	6 and 12 months
Adherence and retention	6 and 12 months
Physical performance and other non-cognitive measures	6 and 12 months

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Stanford University School of Medicine; 🇺🇸 Stanford, California, United States