The impact of cognitive impairment of individuals with Parkinson's disease on their caregivers' mental health: A systematic review protocol

Introduction Parkinson’s disease is a motor disease, the second most common neurodegenerative disorder with cardinal symptoms including bradykinesia, rigidity, and rest tremor accompanied by cognitive difficulties. The caregivers play a crucial role for individuals with Parkinson’s disease; however, many of them may suffer from high caregiver burden and mental health deterioration. This protocol of a systematic review presents a methodology of the review about the impact of cognitive impairment of individuals with Parkinson’s disease on their caregivers’ mental health. Material and methods Research will be identified by combining electronic databases searching and hand searching. The following databases will be included: Medline, PsycInfo, Web of Sciences, Cochrane, CINAHL, Embase and Scopus. The inclusion and exclusion criteria followed to PECOS model. The population of informal caregivers is defined as family members providing care on a patient with Parkinson’s disease. Exposure is linked with the evaluation of a cognitive functioning and outcome is defined as mental health among caregivers of individuals with Parkinson’s disease. We will include two types of studies: observational and intervention. Both, screening and eligibility will be done by two independent reviewers. Study quality will be assessed by two authors independently. Data will be extracted by two reviewers independently and will follow a pre-pilot extraction form. Any discrepancies will be resolved by discussion or/and consultation with another reviewer. The synthesis without meta-analysis (SWiM) guidelines will be used to report on included studies data. The metanalysis with usage the statistical software R version 4.1.2 (2021-11-01) “Bird Hippie” and R metaphor package 3.0–2 of will be conducted if possible. Discussion The goal of this systematic review is to present the association between caregivers’ mental health problems and their proteges’ cognitive impairment. It will enable to identify the gaps in literature and its methodology giving the suggestions for further research.publishedVersio

“Keep up the good work!”: A case study of the effects of a specific cognitive training in Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by significant impairment in multiple cognitive domains. In recent years, the development of cognitive trainings in AD has received significant attention. In the present case study we designed a cognitive training program (GEO, Geographical Exercises for cognitive Optimization) based on an errorless paradigm and tailored to the patient's cultural interests. The aim of this training was to investigate the potential for acquiring and possibly retaining both procedural and verbal knowledge in early-stage AD. This study involved an 80-year-old female patient diagnosed with early-stage AD, and 10 matched healthy subjects. Participants were asked to perform the two GEO training tasks: a "puzzle-like" task for procedural memory, and an "association" task for verbal memory. Both the patient and the healthy controls were subsequently trained with GEO using the same two tasks for 2 months. Although the patient's performance before training in both tasks was poor compared to healthy controls, after the training these differences disappeared. Our results showed that the patient was able to acquire new procedural abilities and verbal knowledge, and that her achievements were stable at the follow-up testing scheduled 3 months after the end of the intervention. This case study suggests a potentially useful strategy for cognitive training in AD. </p