A randomised controlled trial of MAXCOG (MAXimising COGnition in Preclinical and Early Dementia): an individualised early intervention program for people with Mild Cognitive Impairment or early dementia and their family supporters

A randomised controlled trial of MAXCOG (MAXimising COGnition in Preclinical and Early Dementia: an individualised early intervention program for people with Mild Cognitive Impairment or early dementia and their family supporters) versus Usual Care to assess the efficacy of MAXCOG to improve occupational performance problems relating to self-care, productivity, and leisure (measured by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM)

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12612001149853

Acronym

MAXCOG RCT

Enrollment

Registered

2012-10-31

Start date

2013-10-16

Completion date

2014-09-24

Last updated

2020-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

Currently few services aim to support people in the community who are experiencing mild cognitive difficulties or who have early dementia. However, the experience of cognitive difficulties and worry about the future can be very stressful for the person and their close family members; and may make everyday tasks, such as interacting in a group or managing finances, much more difficult. In this project we will develop and evaluate a new face-to-face psycho-educational and counselling program for people with cognitive difficulties and their close family members. The aim of the intervention is to help people implement practical strategies to manage cognitive difficulties in their day-to-day life. By increasing strategy use, we also hope to reduce the anxiety and depression that people with mild cognitive difficulties and their family members can experience. We will evaluate our counselling program by comparing the outcomes for people who undergo the program with those of a comparison group who receive service as usual (a randomised controlled trial).

Interventions

This semi-tailored intervention is designed to deliver psycho-education and counselling to clients with MCI or early dementia and their primary caregivers in the weeks following diagnosis. The objective of the intervention is to teach a range of new strategies to help manage cognitive impairment in daily life. The content will be based on a set of information handouts recently developed by our project team at La Trobe University and Kingston Centre (www.latrobe.edu.au/aipca/projects/mci). An adapted problem solving approach will be adopted in which clients and caregivers will be encouraged to participate in the process of developing the goals for the therapy, and finding the most appropriate strategies to manage cognitive impairment in their day-to-day lives. Session will be face-to-face with the client and their primary caregiver, administered by an Alzheimer's Australia counsellor; Duration/frequency of the intervention: 1 hour session administered weekly for 4 weeks.

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Treatment

Masking

Open (masking not used)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

50 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Community-dwelling clients with a recent (i.e., less than or equal to 6 months) clinical diagnosis of MCI or early dementia (any type); fluent in English; age greater than or equal to 50 years; Mini–mental state examination (MMSE) score greater than or equal to 20; and a primary caregiver with close contact to the client willing to participate in the study and the intervention.

Exclusion criteria

Clients with severe somatic or psychiatric comorbidity, or impaired hearing or vision (which would impair their ability to complete the intervention). Clients already involved in other counselling or cognitive rehabilitation programs.

Outcome results