Prospective Memory Training Research Articles

Virtual reality-based prospective memory training program for people with acquired brain injury

Acquired brain injuries (ABI) may display cognitive impairments and lead to long-term disabilities including prospective memory (PM) failure. Prospective memory serves to remember to execute an intended action in the future. PM problems would be a challenge to an ABI patient's successful community reintegration. While retrospective memory (RM) has been extensively studied, treatment programs for prospective memory are rarely reported. The development of a treatment program for PM, which is considered timely, can be cost-effective and appropriate to the patient's environment. A 12-session virtual reality (VR)-based cognitive rehabilitation program was developed using everyday PM activities as training content. 37 subjects were recruited to participate in a pretest-posttest control experimental study to evaluate its treatment effectiveness. Results suggest that significantly better changes were seen in both VR-based and real-life PM outcome measures, related cognitive attributes such as frontal lobe functions and semantic fluency. VR-based training may be well accepted by ABI patients as encouraging improvement has been shown. Large-scale studies of a virtual reality-based prospective memory (VRPM) training program are indicated.

Prospective Memory Intervention: A Review and Evaluation of a Pilot Restorative Intervention

AbstractProspective memory impairments continue to be among the greatest impediments to return to work for individuals following neurological illness or injury. Current approaches to prospective memory intervention are reviewed in this article. These include behavioral interventions, metacognitive strategies and restorative approaches. In addition, the summary of a study using the restorative approach is presented and discussed. Eight subjects were given a course of prospective memory training designed to increase the length of time that they are able to maintain to-be-performed tasks in mind. These subjects demonstrated improvement on neurospsychological measures, a standardised measure of prospective memory and a generalisation measure of prospective memory in daily life. These data lend support to the notion that prospective memory may be one area of cognition that is responsive to restorative intervention approaches.

Dissociative Contributions of Medial Temporal and Frontal Regions to Prospective Remembering

Prospective memory is memory of future intentions or plans in everyday life. Although some previous neuropsychological studies have stated that the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe are essential for successful prospective remembering, how the two regions contribute to prospective remembering remains unclear. We therefore used prospective memory training in the present study to investigate the neural mechanism of two components of prospective remembering: remembering to remember and remembering content. Two brain-damaged patients participated in this study: patient Y.O., who had lesions in the medial temporal lobe bilaterally, and patient T.K., who had a lesion in the basal forebrain and right medial frontal lobe. Both participants exhibited a severe anterograde amnesic syndrome and had normal IQ scores. Before the prospective memory training the participants underwent several index memory tests to examine their general memory and prospective memory performance. The training consisted of requesting the participants to perform an original mini-day task, in which they were first asked to memorize five simple daily actions with their times for execution, and then to recall the content of the actions when shown a drawing of a clock showing the proper time for execution. A training session was carried out once a week for 3 months. After completing training, the participants were again requested to take the same index memory tests. The results of the training task showed that Y.O.'s memory performance had gradually improved across all sessions of training, but T.K.'s improvement was not as marked. A more detailed analysis revealed that Y.O.'s memory performance was better for recalling time than for recalling content, whereas T.K.'s memory performance was better for recalling content than for recalling time. Furthermore, the results of the final index memory tests showed that the only improvement in Y.O.'s prospective memory was in remembering to remember, and that the only improvement in T.K.'s prospective memory was in remembering content. These results provide strong evidence that these two remembering components of prospective memory have independent neural bases, with the basal forebrain and right medial frontal lobe being required for remembering to remember, and the medial temporal lobe being required for remembering content. The results also suggest that memory training is an effective, means of improving everyday memory.

Prospective Memory and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Review

AbstractThis article aimed to review the assessment and treatment of prospective memory impairment in individuals with traumatic brain injury. The three assessment techniques reviewed included questionnaires, psychological tests, and experimental procedures. Because interest in this area is relatively new, not many assessment techniques have been specifically developed to assess the various constructs of prospective memory. Of these, most lack a firm theoretical basis, adequate norms, and strong psychometric properties. Rehabilitative techniques, based on remedial and compensatory approaches, were then evaluated. Intervention methods that show promise include a prospective memory training approach, diary or memory notebook use, and electronic aids. Nevertheless, there is a need for further controlled trials with larger sample sizes to more thoroughly evaluate these methods. Self-awareness of memory impairment and generalisation of gains from treatment are another two issues identified as important for assessing and treating prospective memory impairment.

Effectiveness of an attention- and memory-training program on neuropsychological deficits in schizophrenia.

The effect of two cognitive remediation procedures developed for closed head injury, Attention Process Training (APT) and Prospective Memory Training (PROMT), on neuropsychological deficits in schizophrenia was investigated. Six patients with schizophrenia, varying in baseline intellectual function and symptoms, were studied; three in a remediation condition and three in a nonremediated control condition. Results were evaluated individually for each of the three treated patients. Two of three remediation-treated subjects showed marked improvement on tests of sustained and divided attention. Untreated patients showed little evidence of change in neuropsychological test performance across a similar time interval, when tested on a subset of the measures administered to remediation-treated patients. The results of this study are discussed with a view toward future studies using larger sample sizes with homogeneous subject populations.

The Efficacy of Prospective Memory Training in Two Adults with Brain Injury

Objective: Investigation of prospective memory training in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Design: Within subject A-B-A-B study with before-after trial assessment on criterion standard neuropsychological measures and two types of generalization probes. Setting: Subjects received outpatient assessment and training in a private clinic. Patients: Two individuals with TBI were selected from 30 consecutive referrals to an outpatient clinic. Subject selection criteria included age of 20 to 55 years; acquired brain injury greater than 1 year; ability to tell time; no previous participation in cognitive rehabilitation; no previous neurologic or psychiatric disorder, substance abuse history, or learning disability; significant other available to take generalization data. Intervention: Subjects received separate blocks of two types of memory intervention; prospective memory training and retrospective memory drill. Prospective memory training consisted of repetitive administration of assigned actions to be completed at future specified times. Retrospective memory intervention required the subjects to recall their prior actions. Main Outcome Measures: Four outcome measures were used: (1) performance on the prospective memory screening test, (2) performance on criterion standard neuropsychological measures, (3) and 4) probes of everyday prospective memory. Results: Results were consistent across botli subjects and suggested their ability to complete designated tasks at target times improved in both the training and community environments as a function of the prospective memory training. One subject improved from a 1-minute prospective memory span to 5 minutes and the other from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. Conclusions: Preliminary data suggest that prospective memory training can improve an individual's prospective memory span and that this training generalizes to daily life

Principles of Generalization Applied to Attention and Memory Interventions

The field of cognitive rehabilitation lacks a cohesive paradigm for promoting and studying generalization of treatment. This article describes a set of generalization principles adapted from the applied behavioral literature that possess broad applicability to different types of cognitive intervention. These principles are then applied to four distinct attention and memory interventions: attention process training, training the use of compensatory memory systems, prospective memory training, and metacognitive strategy training. Using the principles as an organizing framework, examples of methods to facilitate generalization of cognitive therapies are offered. The importance of future research in the area of generalization is underscored.