Evaluating a Digital Memory Notebook App to Improve Functional Independence

October 4, 2018 updated by: Washington State University

Evaluating a Digital Memory Notebook Intervention to Improve Independence and Quality of Life

This study will investigate the efficacy of a smart home / digital memory notebook (DMN) partnership that will allow for real-time intervention and thereby facilitate acquisition and use of the DMN to support everyday independence. The DMN is an app that is installed on a mobile tablet. The smart home technology discovers and recognizes generalizable activities and provides information about functional status and health-related variables for older adult participants. This study will examine how smart home prompts affect individuals' DMN use, ability to maintain activity routines, and overall wellbeing. Prompts will center on helping users organize and schedule daily activities, record both routine and uncommon events that may need to be remembered, and record activities performed and important associated event information (e.g., when, what, where). Prompting will help to promote everyday functional independence by encouraging frequent and regular notebook use and reducing memory difficulties. The DMN will also help to support functional independence by notifying individuals about appointments or prompting individuals to initiate important activities of daily living (e.g., take medications).

This study will also involve a machine learning technique to gain a better understanding of the contexts in which individuals adhere or do not adhere to the prompts. This activity-aware intervention will be deployed in the homes of older adults with memory difficulties, to assess the usability of the technology as well as to evaluate in a naturalistic setting the efficacy of the technology for increasing everyday functional independence and quality of life and decreasing care-partner burden. This contribution is significant because it will demonstrate that intelligent technologies can improve the efficacy of traditional memory rehabilitation techniques, extend functional independence, reduce caregiver burden, and improve quality of life.

Study Overview

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Approximately 30 older adults who complain of memory problems will be recruited for this study. Over the course of six months, participants will complete questionnaires, open-ended questions, and cognitive and motor screens. Participants will also undergo training to learn to use a DMN to support daily activities and will continue to use the DMN for three months following training. Additionally, half of the participants' homes will be equipped with our "smart home in a box" technology that will support DMN use with context-aware prompting technology.

During month one, participants in both conditions will complete a cognitive and motor screen as well as questionnaires assessing depression, quality of life, coping, everyday memory, and functional abilities. Care-partners/informants (when available) will also complete the same questionnaires as well as an additional questionnaire about caregiver burden. The questionnaires will be administered monthly (6x total) for the duration of the study.

During month two, graduate students will train study participants to use the DMN using a training manual and workbook in 6-8 training sessions (depending on participants comfort with the DMN) over 3-4 weeks. Supervision will include review of audiotapes and use of a checklist to monitor fidelity of the training content and process. Participants and care-partners will also answer open-ended questions designed to help improve the DMN and its training procedure as well as the prompting technology and its integration with the DMN at each assessment period. In addition, participants and care-partners will complete questionnaires about their satisfaction and perception of ease of use of the DMN and interface as well as a questionnaire concerning likeability and cognitive demand.

During months three through five, data collection will continue. Participants in the smart home condition will use the DMN in conjunction with prompting technology for the third month, only the DMN for the fourth month, and again the DMN and prompting technology for the fifth month. Control participants will use only the DMN for all three months. Control participants will rely on traditional methods (e.g., time-based alarm cues, sticky notes) to support DMN use rather than activity-aware prompting technology.

During month six, participants will complete a post-test cognitive and motor screen identical to the initial screen. Participants will also complete the set of the previously described questionnaires and open-ended questions.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

30

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Washington
      • Pullman, Washington, United States, 99164-4820
        • Recruiting
        • Washington State University - Pullman
        • Contact:
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

40 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • age 40+
  • memory problems documented by self-report
  • memory problems documented by cognitive data (i.e., memory testing > 1 std below expectations for age and education)
  • English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

  • unable to provide own informed consent
  • lack insight/awareness that are experiencing memory difficulties

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: SINGLE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: DMN/Smart Home Partnership
Participants will learn how to use a digital memory notebook partnered with smart environment prompting technology to support everyday activities of daily living and reduce problems associated with memory deficits.
Other: Digital Notebook app
Training in use of Digital Memory Notebook app
Other: Smart Home Prompting
Smart-home sensor based activity-aware prompting to support digital memory notebook app use
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Digital Memory Notebook app
Participants will learn how to use a Digital Memory Notebook app to support everyday activities of daily living and reduce problems associated with memory deficits.
Other: Digital Notebook app
Training in use of Digital Memory Notebook app

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Digital Memory Notebook Use
Time Frame: Change will be assessed between monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
Mean number of monthly DMN entries made and mean number of monthly DMN uses as measured continuously via the DMN app will be totaled to form a monthly DMN Memory Notebook use score.
Change will be assessed between monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
Quality of Life
Time Frame: Total change in quality of life as measured by QOL-AD (range 13 [poor]-52 [best]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
The Quality of Life-Alzheimer's disease (QOL-AD; Logsdon, 1996) scale will be used to measure quality of life and subjective well-being.
Total change in quality of life as measured by QOL-AD (range 13 [poor]-52 [best]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
Activities of Daily Living
Time Frame: Total change in functional status as measured by IADL-C (range 27 [best]-216 [poor]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
The Instrumental Activities of Daily Living- Compensation (IADL-C; Schmitter-Edgecombe, Parsey, & Lamb, 2014) will be used to provide an estimate of functional difficulties.
Total change in functional status as measured by IADL-C (range 27 [best]-216 [poor]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
Caregiver Burden
Time Frame: Total change in caregiver burden as measured by CBS (range 0 [best]-96 [poor]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).
The Caregiver Burden Scale (CBS; Elmstahl et al., 1996) will be used to assess caregiver burden experienced by participants' care-partners.
Total change in caregiver burden as measured by CBS (range 0 [best]-96 [poor]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Coping self-efficacy
Time Frame: Total change in coping self-efficacy as measured by CSES (range 0 [poor]-130 [best]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months)
The Coping Self Efficacy Scale (CSES) assesses participants' perceived abilities to cope with life challenges.
Total change in coping self-efficacy as measured by CSES (range 0 [poor]-130 [best]) between baseline and monthly time points (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-months)
Cognitive functioning
Time Frame: Total change in cognitive functioning as measured by RBANS (total score) at baseline and end of intervention (6 Months)
Neuropsychological assessment: Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS)
Total change in cognitive functioning as measured by RBANS (total score) at baseline and end of intervention (6 Months)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Washington State University

Collaborators

United States Department of Defense

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

August 1, 2018

Primary Completion (ANTICIPATED)

August 30, 2021

Study Completion (ANTICIPATED)

August 30, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 7, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 26, 2018

First Posted (ACTUAL)

March 5, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

October 9, 2018

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 4, 2018

Last Verified

February 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • AZ150096

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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