Media enhanced educational and training interventions for people at risk of Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Changes in cognition observed in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) syndrome can be noticed by individuals and their families and in most cases this is the reason for asking for medical advice. Later on, computerized cognitive skills training and screening services are offered to sense those conditions and to numerically express the changes in cognition over time. This paper describes a web-platform designed to offer skills-training interventions to people at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). The content development was based mainly on verbal fluency and other combinatorial mental abilities judgment. One hundred fifteen (115) people, aged 55 to 78 years old (M=65.57, SD=5.89) were recruited in a proof-of-concept study (92 MCI/ 22 healthy controls). The results indicated that the systematic use of language in computerized interventions could provide an additional diagnostic and skills-training value for the management of the MCI patients. © 2018 P.Ziti and Co. All rights reserved.