title: Improving everyday error detection, one picture at a time: a performance-based study of everyday task training.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Research suggests that dementia patients detect fewer action errors than age-matched controls; however, little is known about the derivation of their error-monitoring difficulties. The aims of the study are to evaluate a novel, task-training action intervention (TT-NAT) designed to increase error monitoring in dementia patients and to pinpoint the relation between error monitoring and neuropsychological processes.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants (n = 45) with dementia were administered the Standard NAT, a performance-based test requiring completion of three everyday tasks. A second group (n = 42) was administered the TT-NAT, which includes a brief training session prior to the commencement of each task. All participants were compared on the following variables: total errors, proportion of errors detected, and proportion of errors corrected. Correlations between error-monitoring variables and neuropsychological tests of executive functioning and language were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  TT-NAT participants produced fewer total errors and detected significantly more errors than Standard NAT participants (z = 3.0; t = 3.36; p < .05). Error detection was strongly related to only the language composite index (r = .57, p = .00) in the TT-NAT, whereas it was moderately related to both the language (r = .31, p = .04) and executive composite (r = .36, p = .02) indices in the Standard NAT condition.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Review of task steps and objects before task performance may be a promising intervention for error-monitoring deficits in dementia patients; this finding has implications for neuropsychological rehabilitation of functional deficits in this population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Memory and Aging Center, 350 Parnassus Avenue, Suite 905, San Francisco, CA 94143-1207, USA. bbettcher@memory.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Brianne Magouirk
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Bettcher
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Giovannetti
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Libon
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eppig
authors.forename: Denene
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wambach
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Klobusicky
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001676:Biofeedback, Psychology / Q000379:methods*; D003704:Dementia / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis