Intellectual Enrichment to Build Cognitive Reserve in MS
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01978574. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Official title
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Intellectual Enrichment to Build Cognitive Reserve in Multiple Sclerosis
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Cognitive problems are a primary concern for people with multiple sclerosis. In many cases, people with MS report these issues to be more debilitating than the motor symptoms that are targeted by most treatment strategies. For people with MS, impaired memory and thinking skills can interfere with the ability to function efficiently in multiple professional and personal roles. Finding ways to decrease, slow, or reverse declines in memory and thinking skills is a vitally important research priority. We now know that engaging in intellectually enriching activities helps protect against the negative impact of MS disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Such activities contribute to something called 'cognitive reserve,' which serves as a protection against disease-related declines in memory and thinking. Thus far, no one has created a treatment that aims to provide a concentrated 'dose' of intellectual enrichment to build cognitive reserve. The present intervention aims to do precisely this. Here, we have developed a program of enriching activities that are delivered via a personal iPad. This allows for a 12-week 'treatment' that is entirely home-based, while also providing close personal contact between participants and our study personnel, who will communicate daily via emails. Week by week, participants choose from a menu of intellectually enriching activities such that their treatment is dynamic and customizable to fit their interests. The intervention is designed to be fun, as we hope the activities will be incorporated into people's lives beyond the period of the study itself. Given what we already know about the striking benefits of cognitive reserve to protect against disease-related declines in cognitive functioning, we expect to show that treatment with a daily, intense, intellectually enriching schedule of activities results in improved thinking and memory for people with MS. We will also investigate the positive impact of our treatment on the brains of people with MS through brain scans. We expect to see evidence for a shift toward more efficient processing in the brain, changes that translate to improved memory and thinking skills.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01978574
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 9 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Intellectual Enrichment daily activities Behavioral
- Intellectual Enrichment documentary videos Behavioral
Behavioral
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 25 Years to 65 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- May 31, 2013
- Primary completion
- May 31, 2014
- Completion
- May 31, 2014
- Last update posted
- Feb 19, 2020
2013 – 2014
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kessler Foundation | West Orange | New Jersey | 07052 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01978574, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Feb 19, 2020 · Synced Sep 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01978574 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.