At a glance
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Predicting Motor Learning of an Upper Limb Task Based on Behavioral and Disease-specific Characteristics in Patients With Parkinson's Disease
In Brief
A clinical study evaluating Targeted touchscreen training for Parkinson Disease. Completed, enrolled 36 participants across 1 site.
Detailed Summary
Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by severe motor and non-motor symptoms, including upper limb dysfunction. Due to the degradation of dopaminergic neurons in the striatum, PD patients experience difficulties with motor learning and more specifically with the consolidation of motor memory. Recent work showed that intensive writing training improved writing skills in PD. Although consolidation effects were present, difficulties with retention were also still apparent. Besides impacting writing, manual dexterity deficits in PD can also affect the use of touchscreens. Researchers from our lab demonstrated that impairments were most pronounced in multi-direction sliding motions, indicating the need for training of these motor skills. Our lab demonstrated the classic difficulties with retention in PD after one session of training of a swipe and slide pattern on a tablet (SSP-task) as single task (ST), although immediate gains were demonstrated. Therefore, in this study the investigators will examine whether a two-week home-based training program of a tablet-based SSP-training program will lead to immediate and consolidated improvements that are retained in time. This program will combine ST and dual task (DT) training to provide variation during the training period, but also to increase the cognitive challenge during learning, thereby stimulation consolidation of learning. The primary aim of this study consists of investigating the learning effects after two weeks of targeted touchscreen training. Secondary, the investigators will examine whether these effects will also be retained after four weeks without practice and whether targeted training results in consolidated improvements, in terms of automaticity and transfer towards an untrained task. Given the objective recording of compliance to the training protocol, the investigators will explore the association between compliance rates and learning effects.
Study Details
Timeline
Interventions
Participants will practice the Swipe Slide Pattern (SSP) task independently at home in both ST and DT condition, offered in a random order. During this task, participants form different pre-defined patterns by moving their finger over a touchscreen, resembling a touchscreen unlock trace. The DT condition includes the SSP-task while counting either red or green lights illuminated on the screen. They will receive 10 training sessions of the SSP-task over a period of two weeks. Each week will consist of 5 consecutive days of training for approximately 10 minutes per session. Participants will perform 9 trials of 12 patterns each, alternated with rest periods of 14 seconds. Instruction and answers are also included. Feedback will be provided by means of knowledge of performance. On each training day, participants will receive a reminder on the training tablet.