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.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
TRIPLE
Enrollment
118
Tinkering activities are activities that comprise elements of science, art, and technology. Through a series of themes objectives, participants can involve interestingly, creatively, and flexibly in the activity when they fulfill the goal with the materials retrievable at the site. Participants will be trained as they 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.
Controlled Tinkering Activities utilize the themes of Tinkering activities but eliminate the core of Tinkering training, hence implementing a new set of activities that emphasize participants strictly follow procedures to complete the similar objective of Tinkering activities. Each participant will end up with a similar piece of work as Tinkering Activities participants would without problem exploration, active thinking and inference, trial and error, and problem-solving.
Board games are often constructed with concepts of different cognitive components, such as attention, working memory, planning, calculation; therefore serve as a commonly seen cognitive training, while more and more literature continues to support tabletop games being the medium of cognitive promotion.
College of Medicine, National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
National Taiwan Science Education Center
Taipei, Taiwan
Changes of Event-related potential component (ERP): P2, N2, P3
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of reaction time and accuracy of task-switching paradigm
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Accuracy in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Score ranged 0-128, the higher the score, the better the executive function
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Number of Categories Completed in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
The number of sequences of 10 consecutive correct matches (maximum = 6), higher the score, the better the executive function
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Trials to Complete First Category in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Total number of trials to complete first category, the less the score, the better the executive function
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Percent Perseverative Errors in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Failure to Maintain Set in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale
score ranged 20-80, the higher the greater sense of loneliness in the participants.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Geriatric Depression Scale
Score ranged 0-15, the higher the score, the severe the depressive symptoms.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Flow Scale
Score ranged 1-5, higher the score, the better the flow experience the participant had.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Cognitive Flexibility Scale (CFS)
It is a 12-item 6-point scale in Likert format, the higher the score, the higher the participants' cognitive flexibility.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Guilford's Alternative Uses Test (GAU)
Scoring in terms of originality, fluency, elaboration and flexibility. The higher the score the better the creativity and divergent thinking.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Color Trails Test (CTT)
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of University of California, San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA-BRIEF)
Score range 0-100, the higher the score, the better the function of activities of daily living.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Remote Associates Test
Score range 0-30. The higher the score, the better the ability of remote associate creativity.
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Time frame: Week 0, Week 12, Week 36
Changes of Neural functional activity during inferential processing
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of overall accuracy during inferential processing
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant overall accuracy in identifying latent rules in the Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of learning rate during inferential processing
Changes from pre- to post-intervention in participant number of trials to criterion in the Rule Inference functional magnetic resonance imaging task.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Changes of strategic performance during inferential processing
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Logical Memory I & II
Score range 0 - 75. Higher score indicates better verbal episodic memory.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Face Memory
Score range 0 - 48. Higher score indicates better visual face memory.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Verbal Paired Memory
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better verbal memory and learning.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Family Pictures I & II
Score range 0 - 64. Higher score indicates better visual memory and learning.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Word Lists I & II
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.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Visual Reproduction I & II
Score range 0 - 104. Higher score indicates better visual memory. For II, recall score range is 0-104; recognition score range is 0-48.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Spatial Span
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better spatial memory.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Memory Scale III Digit Span
Score range 0 - 32. Higher score indicates better auditory memory.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Vocabulary
Score range 0 - 66. Higher score indicates better vocabulary.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Digit Symbol
Score range 0 - 133. Higher score indicates better processing speed.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Block Design
Score range 0 - 68. Higher score indicates better visual processing.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Arithmetic
Score range 0 - 22. Higher score indicates better mathematical computation ability.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12
Change in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Matrix Reasoning
Score range 0 - 26. Higher score indicates better reasoning.
Time frame: Week 0, Week 12