Philip D. Harvey, PhD Leonard M. Miller Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Miami, Florida
Vanessa Nascimento, MD, MPH PGY-1 Psychiatry Resident University of Miami/Jackson Health System Psychiatry Residency Training Program Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Miami, Florida
Disclosures Dr. Harvey has received consulting fees or travel reimbursements from Alkermes, Bio Excel, Boehringer Ingelheim, Intra-Cellular Therapies, Mindstrong Health, Minerva Pharma, Regeneron Pharma, Roche Pharma, Sunovion Pharma, Takeda Pharma, and Teva. He receives royalties from the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia. He is Chief Scientific Officer of i-Function, Inc. He has research grants from Takeda and the Stanley Medical Research Foundation. Dr. Nascimento reports no financial relationships with any companies whose products are mentioned in this article, or with manufacturers of competing products.
Older patients might ask their clinicians what they can do to “exercise their brain.” Let them know that CCT has been shown to improve cognitive performance in healthy older people, and that there are several evidence-based, commercially available products for this purpose. Two such self-administrable systems with supportive data are BrainHQ (www.brainhq.com) and Happy Neuron (www.happy-neuron.com). Explain that it is likely that the best strategy is a combination of cognitive and functional skills training. One commercially available functional skills training program with supportive data is i-Function (www.i-Function.com). (Editor’s note: One of the authors, PDH, is an employee of i-Function, Inc.)
Bottom Line
Clinicians should ensure older patients that they have the cognitive capacity to learn new technology-related functional skills, and that such patients have the opportunity to learn these skills. Clinicians need to be able to identify people who are at high risk of not being able to adhere to instructions and suggestions that require interactions with technology. Treatment options include computerized cognitive training and functional skills training.
Related Resources
Hill NT, Mowszowski L, Naismith SL, et al. Computerized cognitive training in older adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia: a systematic review and metaanalysis. Am J Psychiatry. 2017;174(4):329-340.
Harvey PD, McGurk SR, Mahncke H, et al. Controversies in computerized cognitive training. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2018;3(11):907-915.
