Project tests effects of a 2-year student-delivered (AD) intervention within a rigorously mentored interdisciplinary training environment. Longterm career goal is independent treatment research, with emphasis on 'technology' transfer to clinical arena, mentoring of students, and providing research support to clinicians in non-academic settings.
Research aims are: (1) To measure the longterm effects of memory and language skills practice and supervised volunteer work on cognition, mood, and rate of decline of early AD patients. (2) To compare experimental subjects with controls receiving a placebo treatment (tx) on project-specific measures and standardized neuropsychological and language tests. (3) To compare the rate of decline of experimentals and controls, as measured by CERAD test results, to that of matched no- treatment controls from the 1281 member CERAD database of longitudinally tested AD patients, over a two-year period. (4) To prepare applicant to become an independent researcher. Project will randomly assign 24 early AD patients that meet CERAD criteria - 8 to experimental and 4 to control treatment - in each of 2 groups that will each participate for 4 semesters. Experimental tx consists of (a) use of a memory training audiotape of biographical statements and strategically placed questions to assist memory formation and retrieval; (b) language exercises which address typical AD deficits by activating semantic memory; (c) and supervised volunteer work. Controls will have monitored walking sessions with a student. All Ss will have 20 1 1/2 hour tx sessions per semester. All Ss will be assessed before tx and at the end of each semester, on memory for biographical facts, number of 'on topic' comments in discourse, picture description, proverb interpretation, verbal fluency, mood, and morale, and, before tx and, at one and two year intervals, on the standardized CERAD neuropsychological battery and subtests of a standardized language battery. Training in CERAD testing, discourse analysis, research design and statistics, behavior analysis, test construction, database management, experimental lab procedures, other AD tx methods.
