This proposal extends follow-up of old and very-old persons who have received cognitive interventions as part of ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for independent and Vital Elderly). Findings at five years indicate the effects of the intervention on cognitive abilities are durable and that these intervention effects have transferred to maintenance of IADL function as hypothesized.
The Specific Aims of this extended follow-up are to: 1) To determine if the cognitive interventions continue to have protective effects up to 10 years after initial training: a) basic cognitive abilities of memory, reasoning, and speed or processing;b) self- reported and performance-based instrumental activities of daily living;and c) health-related quality of life. 2) To determine if the cognitive interventions have beneficial effects on the distal outcomes of driving safety, personal care activities of daily living, health service utilization, and mortality. 3) To examine heath, genetic and cognitive moderators in individual response to training, including such factors as low cognitive function, cardiovascular status, engagement, and ApoE genotype. 4) To estimate and project the effects of ACTIVE training to the general population of older adults by linking the measures and outcomes of ACTIVE to the Health and Retirement Study. This proposal affords a unique opportunity to prospectively study lagged effects of three types of cognitive interventions on functional decline in this well-characterized cohort that, given its advancing age, is now at imminent risk for both IADL and ADL decline. We will be able to test the basic question in this study: For older adults exposed to these cognitive interventions, can disability in the performance of key everyday activities be delayed and independence maintained as subjects age into their 80s. We estimate power to detect effect sizes of 0.2 over 10 years for the cognitive abilities, everyday problem solving, and everyday speed and an effect size of 0.4 for everyday functioning. The ACTIVE study will determine if cognitive training can help older adults to continue functioning and living independently for a longer period of time. This application is a renewal of the application titled ACTIVE Phase II: PSU Field Site. This application is for the Field Site at The Pennsylvania State University. Phase I of ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly) was a randomized controlled trial of three cognitive intervention arms, addressing the question of whether improving basic cognition aided in maintaining functional independence in elders. Phase One found strong, broad and durable cognitive ability-specific training effects but minimal transfer to everyday activities (i.e., functional competence). Through the two-year followup, there was no evidence of a significant decline in ADL and IADL status. To adequately understand the cognitive transfer effects of the training interventions requires a longer followup period, particularly to see whether there is a separation of the change trajectories for everyday activities of trained and untrained participants over time. Phase II of ACTIVE is proposed as a followup study focused on measuring the long- term impact of training effects on cognitive function and cognitively demanding everyday activities. The Phase II followup will consist of one assessment to include the Phase I post-test battery and a clinical assessment. The ACTIVE cohort (n = 2832) is a special sample, containing substantial oversampling of African American, socioeconomically poor, and very old adults.
The Specific Aims of Phase II of ACTIVE are: 1) to determine whether the cognitive interventions (as initial treatment or as a consequence of repeated boosters) have long-term protective effects on functional outcomes;2) to document any delayed transfer of the cognitive training to secondary outcomes;and 3) to identify individual factors that affect response to intervention. As in Phase I, the primary analytical approach to detecting treatment effects on both cognitive and functional abilities will be a repeated-measures, mixed-effects model incorporating all design features as fixed effects and individual-level variability as random effects. Other multivariate analyses including lagged and cross-lagged analyses of change using latent change analysis, structural modeling, and growth curve analyses will also be used as appropriate to characterize relationships between individual difference factors and change in functional competence. Retention is projected conservatively at 72% with 65% of the cohort providing full data and another 7% providing partial data at year 5. Power analysis shows that extending the study will make it possible to observe effect sizes on the order of 0.05-0.10 with excellent power, in the range of at least 80-90%.
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