Reducing Cognitive Deficits after Stroke through Computerized Progressive Attentional Training (CPAT): A Pilot Study

Background and Purpose: Cognitive deficits following stroke are common and are associated with poor rehabilitation outcome. Computerized Progressive Attentional Training (CPAT) has been tested and found effective in children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and there is evidence also for similar training effects on healthy older adults (Anguera et al., 2013). This pilot trial explored the potential effectiveness of CPAT for improving cognition in stroke survivors with cognitive deficits within 2 months of their stroke.
Methods: Eight sub acute stroke participants underwent the CPAT protocol for 10 sessions during a period of two weeks and were compared with controls (who did not receive training) on both attention tasks (eight healthy controls) and general cognitive assessments (eight other sub acute patients). Attention was assessed before and after training using four lab-based attention tasks while cognitive impairment was assessed using the Birmingham Cognitive Screen (BCoS).
Results: The CPAT intervention resulted in improvements on both attention functions (specifically sustained attention) and non-attention functions (e.g., language, memory, number skills and praxis). These improvements could not be simply attributed to the passage of time or repetition of the test (as evident from healthy and the neuropsychological control group performance).
Conclusion: While the small sample size and the pilot nature of the study should be taken into account, the results indicate that CPAT is potentially an effective and valuable instrument that can be applied to help ameliorate attentional deficits following stroke.