Improving Prospective Memory in Persons With Parkinson Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background Prospective memory is essential for productive and independent living and necessary for compliance with prescribed health behaviors. Parkinson disease (PD) can cause prospective memory deficits that are associated with activity limitations and reduced quality of life. Forming implementation intentions is an encoding strategy that may improve prospective memory in this population. Objective To determine the effect of implementation intentions on prospective memory performance in PD. Methods This was a laboratory-based randomized controlled trial. Participants with mild to moderate PD without dementia (N = 62) performed a computerized prospective memory test (Virtual Week) under standard instructions. One week later they were randomly allocated to perform it again while using either implementation intentions or a rehearsal encoding strategy. Results Prospective memory performance was better with the use of both strategies relative to standard instructions. This effect was larger for tasks with event-based compared to time-based cues. In addition, implementation intentions resulted in a larger effect than rehearsal for the non-repeated tasks. Conclusions Strategies that support full encoding of prospective memory cues and actions can improve prospective memory performance among people with PD, particularly for tasks with cues that are readily available in the environment. Implementation intentions may be more effective than rehearsal for non-repeated tasks, but this finding warrants verification. Future work should address transfer of strategy use from the laboratory to everyday life. Targeted strategies to manage prospective memory impairment could improve function and quality of life and significantly impact clinical care for people with PD. (NCT01469741)

Encoding strategy training and self-reported everyday prospective memory in people with Parkinson disease: a randomized-controlled trial

“…Our data are consistent with the notion that II is a more robust prospective memory strategy than VR and may help to compensate for PD-related deficits in executive control processes that underlie intention formation and retrieval (Foster, McDaniel, et al, 2017; Kliegel et al, 2011). Previously, we found that although both strategies improved laboratory prospective memory performance among people with PD, II produced larger effects for tasks with higher strategic encoding and attentional monitoring demands (nonrepeated and non-focal tasks, respectively) (Foster, McDaniel, et al, 2017). This study expands on our previous work to show that training in II may also benefit everyday prospective memory among people with PD.…”

“…They were randomly assigned to the experimental (implementation intentions [II]) or control (verbal rehearsal [VR]) encoding strategy group and completed laboratory-based strategy training. Training occurred in the context of the computerized Virtual Week prospective memory test by instructions from the examiner and automated messages from the Virtual Week (for full description and screen shots of the specific version used in this study, see Foster, McDaniel, et al, 2017; for overview, see also Rendell & Henry, 2009). The Virtual Week takes the form of a board game, with one circuit of the board representing one day.…”

“…To measure prospective memory-related awareness, we asked participants to predict and “postdict” their prospective memory performance on the computerized Virtual Week (Foster, McDaniel, et al, 2017; Rendell & Henry, 2009). After completing the Virtual Week practice day but before the test days, participants predicted how many of the 24 prospective memory tasks they would execute accurately during the test.…”

“…Following this reasoning, we conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing the effects of II and verbal rehearsal (VR) on prospective memory in PD (Foster, McDaniel, & Rendell, 2017). In line with previous studies (e.g.…”

Effect of Vitamin D in HN9.10e Embryonic Hippocampal Cells and in Hippocampus from MPTP-Induced Parkinson’s Disease Mouse Model

“…Downregulation of hippocampus VDR was reported in AD ( Sutherland et al, 1992 ; Gezen-Ak et al, 2013 ). Instead, VDR has never been analyzed in PD although some patients have memory deficiency as AD patients ( Foster et al, 2017 ). Therefore we sought to study the specific cell type expressing VDR in DG of hippocampus in MPTP-induced PD mouse model.…”