Working Memory Training in Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment : Impacts on Cognition and Ecological Activities

Older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) have an increased risk of developing dementia but do not meet the criteria for dementia. Cognitive rehabilitation makes it possible to compensate, at least in part, for cognitive deficits with the ultimate goal of reducing their impact in everyday life. The objective of the research is to evaluate the short- and long-term effectiveness and generalization of an attention and working memory training program (APT-II) on cognition and ecological activities in MCI patients with a randomized controlled trial. Thirty MCI patients will be randomly assigned between a "cognitive training with APT-II" condition and a control (routine care) condition. The intervention will consist of an 8-week individual cognitive training program (2 sessions/week), training different attentional components and working memory. This has the advantage of insisting on the transfer of the acquired knowledge in sessions to daily activities. To evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment, cognitive and functional follow-up measures (including a virtual reality task) are administered at several time intervals. This project should contribute to better management of cognitive disorders by offering a new standardized rehabilitation tool in French to clinical practice.