Authors (including presenting author) :
Ho BLM (1), Poon DWF (1)
Affiliation :
(1) Occupational Therapy Department, PWH
Introduction :
Patients with COVID-19 infection are commonly reported with neurological disorders and cognitive impairment. The decline in cognition is proven to affect and worsen their activities of daily living and quality of life. Computerized cognitive training was proven to be an effective and safe way to delay the onset of cognitive symptoms and slow down cognitive decline. While computerized cognitive training is common in cognitive impairment individuals, the effectiveness of computerized cognitive training in recovered COVID-19 patient’s cognitive function is currently unclear.
Objectives :
The study aimed to conduct a randomized controlled trial to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of computerized cognitive training for recovered COVID-19 patients in old-aged home with cognitive impairment.
Methodology :
A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 24 subjects. Subjects were first randomized into intervention and control groups. The intervention group consisted of 12 subjects who were being diagnosed with COVID-19, the presence of objective cognitive impairment, and the time of being diagnosed with COVID-19 for more than 4 weeks and not more than 6 months. Subjects in the intervention group who would receive computerized cognitive training and subjects in the control group who would not receive any training. The computerized cognitive training lasted for 4 consecutive weeks, 2 sessions per week and 30 minutes for each session. The selection of computerized cognitive training activities was set up by the principal investigator based on the objective cognitive assessment results. The training difficulty was graded and adjusted according to the subject’s performance. The training compliance on each individual training sessions was monitored by principal investigator.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 24 subjects were enrolled in this study, with 9 males (37.5%) and 15 females (62.5%), with a mean age of 83.4. The mean year of education was 2 years. Before intervention, the age, gender, years of education, the comorbidity status of the 2 groups showed no significant differences across all variables in the test of homogeneity (p > 0.05). A statistically significant improvement was observed in MoCA sub-score delay recall in the treatment group (p < 0.05). There were no statistically significant results obtained between the intervention and control groups for MoCA total score (p = 0.228), attention (p = 0.328), and delay recall (p = 0.052). This study suggested that computerized cognitive training can improve delay recall and shows a modest beneficial effect on cognitive function in recovered COVID-19 old-aged home residents.
