Speed of Processing Training in Adults With HIV

As people age with HIV, the synergistic effects with normal age-related cognitive declines will accentuate and/or accelerate declines in cognitive functioning which can be detected as early in one's 40s. Although interventions are needed to protect/improve cognitive functioning, one intervention already exists to improve speed of processing. NINR/NIA (January 14, 2014) announced that Speed of Processing Training used in the ACTIVE Study (N = 2,802 community-dwelling older adults) has the ability to enable "older people to maintain their cognitive abilities as they age" even 10 years after training. As shown in the ACTIVE Study, this intervention uniquely improves driving, instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), health-related quality of life, self-rated health, internal locus of control, and protects one from depression; these represent areas of needed intervention for adults with HIV as well. In adults with HIV, previous pilot studies likewise indicate speed of processing declines are associated with poorer driving simulator performance and more self-reported at-fault automobile crashes; such speed of processing declines on driving alone represent a significant public health concern. These studies also demonstrated that Speed of Processing Training improved this cognitive ability and translated into improved performance on a timed measure of IADLs. Based on prior research, this RCT proposal consists of a pre-post two-year longitudinal experimental design whereby 264 adults with HIV, 40+ years and diagnosed with HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder, will be randomly assigned to one of three training conditions: 1) 10 hours of laboratory-based Speed of Processing Training, 2) 20 hours of laboratory-based Speed of Processing Training, or 3) 10 hours of a standardized computer-contact control (sham) condition. AIM 1: Determine whether 10 vs 20 hours of speed of processing training will improve this cognitive ability at post-test, year 1, and year 2 after bas