Effectiveness of Attention/executivefunctions Training on Prospective Memory Abilities of Parkinson's Disease Subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Healthy Aged Individuals: a Placebo-controlled Study with a Combined Immersive Virtual Reality and Telemedicine Approach

Summary

The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to evaluate the efficacy of attention and executive function training on prospective memory (PM) and executive functions in patients with Parkinson's disease and mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) and compare their performance to healthy volunteers. The study aims to determine whether immersive virtual reality (iVR) training can improve PM and executive function performance in PD-MCI patients, whether the effects of training are maintained over time, and how the PM and executive function performance of PD-MCI patients compares to that of healthy volunteers. Participants in the training group engage in real-life scenario exercises focused on planning, shifting, and updating tasks, while those in the placebo group perform simpler daily tasks with lower cognitive demands. Healthy volunteers serve as an additional control group. All sessions are conducted remotely using telemedicine and iVR headsets over a 4-week period. Outcome measures, including PM and executive function performance, are assessed at baseline, post-training, and a 2-month follow-up to evaluate the intervention's effectiveness and compare results across groups.

Conditions

• Parkinson's Disease with Cognitive Impairment
• Healthy Elderly

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Experimental Cognitive training in Immersive Virtual Reality and Telemedicine approach

The cognitive training involved a 4-week immersive virtual reality program to improve planning, cognitive flexibility, and information updating in patients with mild cognitive impairment related to Parkinson's disease. Over 12 sessions of 30 minutes each, participants trained in a virtual supermarket to strengthen attentional and executive skills. The planning task required creating and following a route to collect items while following rules, with increasing complexity. The cognitive flexibility task involved alternating between selecting items from different categories, with difficulty rising due to more categories and distractors. The updating task, set at a virtual checkout, challenged participants to memorize and recall items on a conveyor belt, with difficulty increasing based on sequence length and item count. Progression to higher levels required three successful trials, with feedback provided to support performance improvement

BEHAVIORAL

Active Comparator #1

The active placebo used the same virtual environment, Oculus Go system, and telemedicine setup as the training group, but engaged in tasks with low cognitive demands, mimicking everyday activities. The placebo-planning task involved following a fixed shopping list order in a modified version of the Zoo Map Test. The placebo-shifting task required selecting items from shelves without alternating between categories, while the placebo-updating task involved recalling only the last item from a conveyor belt sequence. The sessions mirrored the training group's structure, with 12 sessions over 4 weeks (3 per week, 30 minutes each), maintaining the same frequency, duration, and levels than Training.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Padova

  collaborator OTHER

• I.R.C.C.S. Fondazione Santa Lucia

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

56 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-04-12

Primary Completion

2024-02-03

Completion

2024-07-17

Countries

• Italy

Study Locations