Learning face–name associations in early-stage dementia: Comparing the effects of errorless learning and effortful processing

Abstract

Some recent studies suggest that errorless learning principles may be beneficial in memory rehabilitation for people with dementia, while others indicate that effortful processing may be more important. The present study compared the effects of four different learning techniques, varying in level of effort required and number of errors elicited, on free recall, cued recall and recognition of novel and previously known associations among people with early-stage dementia. Ten participants with a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer's, vascular or mixed dementia learned novel and previously familiar face-name associations with each of four techniques--vanishing cues, forward cues, target selection, and paired associate learning--in a within-subjects design. All conditions produced significant learning for both novel and familiar associations. There were no significant differences between conditions, although mean scores were slightly higher for errorful conditions. Reducing errors did not produce any benefits. Enhancing level of effort had no significant effects for familiar associations, but high-effort conditions were significantly more effective than low-effort conditions in facilitating cued recall of novel associations. The results confirm that memory rehabilitation techniques can produce significant benefits, but do not support the view that error reduction during learning facilitates greater improvement in early-stage dementia. Effort enhancement may be more important, especially when learning novel associations.

Non-pharmacological intervention for memory decline

“…These findings are consistent with the literature demonstrating that errorless learning is more effective than learning with error among other patient populations (Squires et al, 1997;Hunkin et al, 1998b;Tailby and Haslam, 2003). Dunn and Clare (2007) conducted a study comparing the effects of four different learning techniques (vanishing cues, forward cues, target selection, and paired associate learning) on the acquisition of name-face associations among patients in the earlystage of AD, patients with vascular dementia and patients with mixed dementia. Overall, these findings showed that each learning method was effective and provided further evidence that learning is possible in AD and vascular dementia patients, which had been shown in previous studies (Camp et al, 1993;Bird and Kinsella, 1996).…”

Application of Cognitive Rehabilitation Theory to the Development of Smart Prompting Technologies

“…Cognitive rehabilitation has been found successful in teaching individuals with dementia [22]- [24] and MCI [25] to learn or re-learn information, maintain information over time, apply information to everyday contexts, develop strategies to compensate for memory impairment, and adjust the environment to reduce memory demands [26]- [28]. Cognitive rehabilitation theory (CRT) is multi-dimensional and emphasizes the importance of an individual's personal context, environmental context, and social system [29].…”

The Cognitive Effects of Wearable Cameras in Mild Alzheimer Disease – An Experimental Study

“…While the Memo+ intervention included specific tasks aimed to stimulate attention [33], working memory/executive function [34], verbal episodic memory [36], visual episodic memory [35], prospective memory [37], neither the SenseCam intervention nor the Diary intervention were specifically structured to train any of these areas of cognition. Despite some limitations of our analyses, due to baseline group differences in some of the specific measures of episodic memory, the data analysed suggest that the SenseCam and the Memo+ groups, compared to the Diary group, had improved performance in episodic memory after the intervention.…”

“…We selected tasks and techniques where there was published evidence of memory improvement in brain injury. In short, we included training and practice in the following domains: exercises to improve motivation [32], attention [33], working memory [34], autobiographical and episodic memory [35,36,37,38] semantic memory [39] and implicit memory [40]. An adapted motivational interview was constructed for the start of the sessions [32] (that included a set of open questions regarding the actual interest of the participants in taking part in the study, expectations about possible gains to be obtained in the study, and also questions regarding the prior existence of self-initiated activities to stimulate the brain -such as crosswords, Sudoku, reading, etc.)…”