Next: Scalable, medication-free relief of cognitive symptoms related to Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

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At-Home Cog­ni­tive Reme­di­a­tion May Pro­vide Med­ica­tion-Free Symp­tom Relief for Neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal Issues Asso­ci­at­ed with Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis (press release):

“Cog­ni­tive impair­ment is one of the core symp­toms of mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS)—and one of its most trou­bling con­cerns for many peo­ple with the con­di­tion. Now, a new study from NYU Lan­gone Med­ical Cen­ter may pro­vide hope for symp­to­matic relief for some of the cog­ni­tive issues asso­ci­at­ed with the neu­ro­log­i­cal disease.

In a ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­al, peo­ple with MS who used a com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion train­ing pro­gram at home for 12 weeks had sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er cog­ni­tive test scores than those who used a place­bo com­put­er program…“Many patients with MS don’t have the time or resources to get to the clin­ic sev­er­al times a week for cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion, and this research shows remote­ly-super­vised cog­ni­tive train­ing can be suc­cess­ful­ly pro­vid­ed to indi­vid­u­als with MS from home,” says senior study author Lau­ren B. Krupp, MD, pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy and direc­tor of the Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis Com­pre­hen­sive Care Cen­ter. “Future stud­ies will look at which patients with MS might respond most to cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion, and whether these improve­ments can be enhanced or sus­tained over longer peri­ods of time.”

Poster: An Adap­tive Com­put­er-Based Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Pro­gram Improves Cog­ni­tive Func­tion­ing in Adults with Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis (MS): Results of a Dou­ble-Blind Ran­dom­ized Active-Place­bo-Con­trolled 12-Week Tri­al (pre­sent­ed at 2016 AAN meet­ing). From the abstract:

• Objec­tive: We com­pared the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of an adap­tive cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram to ordi­nary com­put­er games in cog­ni­tive­ly-impaired adults with mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS).
• Back­ground: Cog­ni­tive impair­ment affects more than half of all indi­vid­u­als liv­ing with mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS). Despite its long­stand­ing recog­ni­tion, treat­ment options remain lim­it­ed. Com­put­er-based adap­tive cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams pro­vide inten­sive reme­di­a­tion that adjusts to the indi­vid­ual user’s lev­el of per­for­mance in real-time for con­sis­tent lev­els of engage­ment and effort. As an addi­tion­al ben­e­fit, train­ing can be accessed from home.
• Results: The groups were bal­anced in age (mean=50 years), dis­abil­i­ty (medi­an EDSS=3.5), or base­line cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing (mean Sym­bol Dig­it Modal­i­ties Test z‑score=-2.1). Despite high­er play­ing time in the place­bo con­di­tion (53.2 ± 31.0 vs. 42.0 ±30.4 hours played, p=0.04), change in the com­pos­ite z‑score from base­line to study end showed that the adap­tive train­ing pro­gram result­ed in sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater improve­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing (change in com­pos­ite z score 0.20±0.36 vs. 0.05±0.31, p=0.02 from strat­i­fied non-para­met­ric test), with marked treat­ment response observed in some individuals.
• Con­clu­sions: Adap­tive, com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion can lead to improved cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing in MS.

To learn more:

• Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions