Rehabilitation Treatment of Time Deficits in Brain-damaged Patients

Summary

The efficacy of an innovative rehabilitation treatment for deficit in time processing is tested in right brain damaged patients.

Patients with a focal lesion following a stroke and without general cognitive impairment will be submitted to computerized tests assessing the ability to estimate time duration (intervals around 7500 ms) and to mental travel in time. Moreover, the impact of the deficit in time processing in everyday life will be evaluated by using ad hoc questionnaires.

Patients will perform tasks before and after two weeks of a new rehabilitation treatment, combining a training for one week with prismatic googles inducing prismatic adaptation (PA) plus Virtual Reality (VR) and a training for one week with neutral googles inducing no-adaptation (NA) plus Virtual Reality. Participants will be randomized into two groups. Each group will be submitted to both treatments in a different order, accordingly with a crossover design.

A greater amelioration in time processing after PA+VR than NA+VR training should be found. Moreover, an improvement in everyday life activities is expected accordingly with the amelioration in time processing.

Conditions

• Brain Damage

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Prismatic googles inducing prismatic adaptation (PA) associated to Virtual Reality (VR)

The experimental condition consists of PA procedure associated to VR task: the pointing task will be followed by 5 sessions of VR task. Pointing task. Patients will perform a session of 90 pointing movements toward a visual target presented in a variety of positions on the right, the left or at the center of the visual field. This pointing task will be performed with prismatic googles inducing a rightward shift of the visual field (experimental condition). After lenses removal, a leftward shift of spatial attention will be produced. Virtual Reality task consists of a 3D computer-generated virtual environment that will be displayed on a desktop VR computer monitor. A joystick will provide the graphical interface for patients by allowing user-friendly exploration of virtual scenarios. Patients will be presented 16 actions, with dynamic simulations of real life situations. They will verbally estimate and reproduce the duration of each previously presented action.

OTHER

Neutral googles inducing no-adaptation (NA) associated to Virtual Reality (VR)

The sham condition of this study consists of NA procedure associated to VR task: the pointing task will be followed by 5 sessions of VR task. Pointing task. Patients will perform a session of 90 pointing movements toward a visual target presented in a variety of positions on the right, the left or at the center of the visual field. This pointing task will be performed with neutral goggles (control condition), which should not induce a shift of the visual field and of spatial attention. Virtual Reality task consists of a 3D computer-generated virtual environment that will be displayed on a desktop VR computer monitor. A joystick will provide the graphical interface for patients by allowing user-friendly exploration of virtual scenarios. Patients will be presented 16 actions, with dynamic simulations of real life situations. They will verbally estimate and reproduce the duration of each previously presented action.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Bologna

  collaborator OTHER

• Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Francesca Frassinetti, PhD · Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

45 Years

Max Age

85 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-02-01

Primary Completion

2018-03-20

Completion

2023-01-13

Countries

• Italy

Study Locations