NCT01978574

Intellectual Enrichment to Build Cognitive Reserve in MS

Completed NA Last updated 20 February 2020

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Intellectual Enrichment daily activities in Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis in 9 participants. Completed in 1 June 2014.

Timeline

1 June 2013

Primary endpoint
1 June 2014

1 June 2014

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Kessler Foundation
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	triple
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	9
Start date	1 June 2013
Primary completion	1 June 2014
Estimated completion	1 June 2014
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Intellectual Enrichment daily activities
• Intellectual Enrichment documentary videos

Conditions studied

• Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis — all drugs for Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis →

Sponsor

Kessler Foundation

Who can join

Adults 25 to 65, any sex, with Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Cognitive problems are a primary concern for people with multiple sclerosis. In many cases, people with MS report these issues to be more debilitating than the motor symptoms that are targeted by most treatment strategies. For people with MS, impaired memory and thinking skills can interfere with the ability to function efficiently in multiple professional and personal roles. Finding ways to decrease, slow, or reverse declines in memory and thinking skills is a vitally important research priority. We now know that engaging in intellectually enriching activities helps protect against the negative impact of MS disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Such activities contribute to something called 'cognitive reserve,' which serves as a protection against disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Thus far, no one has created a treatment that aims to provide a concentrated 'dose' of intellectual enrichment to build cognitive reserve. The present intervention aims to do precisely this. Here, we have developed a program of enriching activities that are delivered via a personal iPad. This allows for a 12-week 'treatment' that is entirely home-based, while also providing close personal contact between participants and our study personnel, who will communicate daily via emails. Week by week, participants choose from a menu of intellectually enriching activities such that their treatment is dynamic and customizable to fit their interests. The intervention is designed to be fun, as we hope the activities will be incorporated into people's lives beyond the period of the study itself. Given what we already know about the striking benefits of cognitive reserve to protect against disease-related declines in cognitive functioning, we expect to show that treatment with a daily, intense, intellectually enriching schedule of activities results in improved thinking and memory for people with MS. We will also investigate the positive impact of our treatment on the brains of people with MS through brain scans. We expect to see evidence for a shift toward more efficient processing in the brain, changes that translate to improved memory and thinking skills.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.