title: Patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease engage in verbal reminiscence with the support of a computer-aided program: a pilot study.
abstract: This study focused on the assessment of a program recently developed for helping patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease engage in computer-mediated verbal reminiscence (Lancioni et al., 2014a). Sixteen participants were involved in the study. Six of them used the original program version with the computer showing a virtual partner posing questions and providing attention and guidance. The other 10 used a slightly modified program version with the computer presenting photos and videos and providing encouragements to talk as well as attention and guidance. Participants were exposed to brief program sessions individually. The results showed that 15 participants (five of those using the first version and all of those using the second version) had a clear and lasting increase in verbal engagement/reminiscence during the intervention sessions with the program. Those 15 participants had mean percentages of intervals with verbal engagement/reminiscence below 10 during baseline and between about 45 and 75 during the intervention. The results' implications and the need for new research were discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience and Sense Organs, University of Bari Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Giulio E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Lancioni
authors.affiliation: Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Regents University Augusta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Nirbhay N
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Special Education, University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Mark F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: O'Reilly
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sigafoos
authors.affiliation: S. Raffaele Medical Care Center Alberobello, Italy.
authors.forename: Fiora
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: D'Amico
authors.affiliation: Lega F. D'Oro Research Center Osimo, Italy.
authors.forename: Gabriele
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferlisi
authors.affiliation: ISPE Medical Care Center Mola di Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Floriana
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Denitto
authors.affiliation: Memory Drops Day Center Giovinazzo, Italy.
authors.forename: Floriana
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: De Vanna
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marta Olivetti
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Belardinelli
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; computer-aided program; reminiscence; verbal cues; visual cues