Deans' stroke musings: Let’s Talk: Web-Based Chats Boost Brain Function in Older Adults

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, April 29, 2024

Let’s Talk: Web-Based Chats Boost Brain Function in Older Adults

What EXACT PROTOCOL does your competent? doctor have to boost your brain function post stroke? NONE? So you don't have a functioning stroke doctor? Why are you seeing them? Find someone better!

There is no way I could get my 95 year old Mom to work a smartphone without someone sitting next to her and guiding every key stroke.

Let’s Talk: Web-Based Chats Boost Brain Function in Older Adults

Summary: Internet-based conversations can significantly improve cognitive functions in socially isolated older adults. The trial, known as I-CONECT, involved 186 participants aged 75 and older who engaged in structured video chats four times weekly, which helped enhance memory and executive function, particularly among those with mild cognitive impairment.

Over the course of a year, these interactions not only increased cognitive scores but also improved emotional well-being and increased connectivity in brain regions associated with attention. The findings suggest that digital conversations can be a viable strategy to combat social isolation and its cognitive repercussions.

Key Facts:

Enhanced Cognitive Function: Participants in the I-CONECT trial who engaged in frequent digital conversations showed improvements in global cognitive test scores and language-based executive functions.
Improved Emotional Well-Being: Both the control and intervention groups experienced boosts in emotional health, indicating that regular social contact, even brief, can have positive effects.
Neurological Benefits: Brain imaging revealed increased connectivity within the dorsal attention network of the intervention group, highlighting the potential of conversational interactions to enhance brain function.

Source: Harvard

Just talking to other people can stimulate different brain functions among socially isolated older adults, even when the interactions are internet-based, according to a new clinical trial out of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The results are published in The Gerontologist.

“We initiated the first proof of concept behavioral intervention study in 2010, nearly a decade prior to the COVID-19 pandemic drawing attention to the detrimental effects of social isolation on our overall health,” explained lead author Hiroko H. Dodge, the principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health–funded trials.

This shows an older man using a cell phone. — Measures of emotional well-being improved in both control and intervention groups, suggesting that emotion can be boosted by brief weekly telephone calls while improving cognitive function requires frequent conversational engagement. Credit: Neuroscience News

The 186-participant phase 2 randomized trial, called I-CONECT, used the internet and webcams to allow for conversational interactions between trained interviewers and socially isolated individuals aged 75 years and older who had normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment.

Investigators rotated conversation partners assigned to each participant to enhance the novelty of the experience, provided user-friendly devices allowing participants without any internet/webcam experience to easily engage in video-based conversations, and encouraged conversations with standardized daily themes and picture prompts.

Thirty-minute conversations were conducted four times per week for six months and then twice per week for an additional six months. A control group of similar individuals did not participate in such conversations, but both the intervention and control groups received weekly 10-minute telephone check-ins.

After the initial six-month period, the intervention group had a higher global cognitive test score compared with the control group with a large effect size among those with mild cognitive impairment. Also, intervention group participants with normal cognition had scores indicating higher language-based executive function.

At the end of final six-month period, intervention group participants with mild cognitive impairment had test scores indicating better memory-related brain function than those in the control group.

Measures of emotional well-being improved in both control and intervention groups, suggesting that emotion can be boosted by brief weekly telephone calls while improving cognitive function requires frequent conversational engagement.

Also, brain imaging tests showed that the intervention group had increased connectivity within the dorsal attention network—a region important for the maintenance of visuospatial attention—relative to the control group, although this finding must be interpreted carefully because of the limited number of participants assessed due to COVID-19–related research restrictions.

Upon requests from former trial participants asking to continuously have conversations, Dodge and her colleagues have established a nonprofit organization, the I-CONNECT Foundation. The foundation has been providing social interactions to isolated older individuals in the community free of charge, using the same materials used in the trial.

“Our next goal is to extend these activities to reach more isolated individuals in need, as well as to delve into the biological mechanisms underlying the impact of social interactions on our brain functions,” said Dodge.

“Providing frequent stimulating conversational interactions via the internet could be an effective home-based dementia risk-reduction strategy against social isolation and cognitive decline.

“We plan to extend this therapy to geriatric outpatient populations, for which we are currently fundraising, and also examine its effectiveness for mild to moderate depressive symptoms.”

The team is also exploring the possibility of providing conversational interactions via chatbot — an artificial intelligence – trained robot that provides stimulating conversations as a cost-effective intervention.

“We are aware that human contacts are critically important for our emotional well-being, but for cognitive stimulations, chatbots might work as effectively as humans, which we are currently investigating,” said Dodge, who serves as the director of Research Analytics at the recently inaugurated Interdisciplinary Brain Center at MGH and is a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School.

Funding: Funding was provided by the National Institute on Aging.