Digital Gaming for Improving the Functioning of People With Traumatic Brain Injury: Protocol of a Feasibility Study

Abstract

BackgroundTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is a critical public health problem. The recovery process for people with TBI is typically slow and dependent on complex and intensive assisted rehabilitation programs.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effects and feasibility of digital games for cognitive functioning and general well-being among people with traumatic brain injury.MethodsThis is a single-site feasibility study conducted in Finland, which uses a pragmatic, randomized controlled trial with three arms, and will recruit patients from the Turku University Hospital, Division of Clinical Neurosciences in Finland. Participants must meet the following inclusion criteria: (1) a Finnish speaking adult, aged 18-65 years; (2) diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (diagnostic criteria ICD-10, S06.X, T90.5) in the University Hospital; (3) access to a TV, a computer, and the Internet at home; (4) not an active digital gamer (5 hours or less a week); (5) willing to participate in the study. Participants must have been discharged from the neurologic treatment period for traumatic brain injury for over 12 months before the commencement of the trial, and they may not have actively participated in cognitive rehabilitation during the 3 months prior to the trial. Written informed consent will be mandatory for acceptance into the trial. Exclusion criteria are as follows: (1) sensory, cognitive, or physical impairment (eg, severe cognitive impairment); (2) a deficiency restricting the use of computers or computer game control system unaided (eg, impairment in vision, severe astigmatism, hemiplegia, disorder in visuospatial perception, dysfunction of the central vestibular system); (3) apathy identified in previous neuropsychological evaluations; (4) diagnosed severe mental disorders (eg, schizophrenia or severe depressive disorders to be identified in medical records as the secondary diagnosis).ResultsThe preparatory phase for the study is fulfilled. Recruitment started in June 2015 and finished November 2015. Results will be reported in 2016.ConclusionsThe specific outcomes such as primary outcome measures were selected because they are widely used psychological tests and thought to be sensitive to changes in the cognitive functions related to TBI.Trial RegistrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT02425527; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02425527 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6esKI1uDH)

Digital Gaming for Improving the Functioning of People With Traumatic Brain Injury: Randomized Clinical Feasibility Study

“…The study includes a three-arm, parallel, and randomized clinical trial examining the effectiveness and feasibility of digital gaming for improving cognitive functioning and general well-being in people with TBI. The full study design and detailed description of the study methods can be found elsewhere [ 48 ].…”

“…On the basis of our preliminary power calculations (see [ 48 ]), the sample size was expected to be 30 in each group, which is not very strong but reasonable enough for a feasibility study aiming to detect changes within a group between baseline and follow-up outcome measurements with an expected attrition rate close to 0%. However, some patients changed their minds regarding their participation before signing a consent form and dropped out of the recruitment process.…”

“…To encourage, motivate, and hold participants to training, they were supported in planning a schedule for their training sessions (days, time, and frequency) for the entire 8-week gaming period. A more detailed description of the intervention can be found in the study protocol [ 48 ].…”

“…The project purchased the participant-selected game (see below) from the official PlayStation Store and downloaded and installed the game into the console given to the participant. Games to be selected by the participants (a total of eight games) were considered to correspond to the rehabilitation games and to contain the same core gameplay elements (see [ 48 ]).…”

Efecto de un programa de actividad físico deportiva sobre la salud de personas con daño cerebral adquirido en fase crónica

“…El uso del juego está en la línea de propuestas de implementación de programas de realidad virtual que han evidenciado mejoras en la rehabilitación de DCA (Lloréns, Colomer-Font, Alcaniz, y Noé-Sebastián, 2013;Putnam, Cheng, y Seymour, 2014;Valimaki et al, 2016), y la utilización de juegos en la rehabilitación cognitiva (Christensen, 2000;Shapi'i, Mat Zin, y Elaklouk, 2015).…”