Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the treatment efficacy of the Attention Process Training (APT; Sohlberg & Mateer, 2005), a therapeutic protocol designed for individuals who have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), on a person with Parkinsons disease to determine if improvement of various attention processes and memory recall could be improved.
Methods: We designed a phase I, multiple baseline A1-B-A2-A3, single-subject study with one participant diagnosed with idiopathic PD and self-reported attention impairments. We used Attention Process Training (APT) protocol (Sohlberg & Mateer, 2005) to train attention process 120-minutes per session, one time per week for 6 sessions.
Results: The participant demonstrated a large improvement in sustained attention for both percent accuracy (A1 to A2 d=5.196; A1 to A3 d = 13.279; A2 to A3 d=1.443) and timed performance (A1 to A2 d=2.952; A1 to A3 d = 3.153; A2 to A3 d=0.287). While treating sustained attention, we continued to probe selective, alternating and divided attention. Carryover improvement was noted with selective attention percent accuracy (A1 to A2 d=.091; A1 to A3 d=2.817; A2 to A3 d=1.299) and timed performance (A1 to A2 d=.690; A1 to A3 d=1.044; A2 to A3 d=1.598), and divided attention percent accuracy (A1 to A2 d=1.225; A1 to A3 d = 1.225; A2 to A3 d=2.860) and timed performance (A1 to A2 d=2.041; A1 to A3 d = 1.225; A2 to A3 d=1.155).
The results of the TEA indicated an improvement or maintenance in the scaled scores of each subtest. Performance increased in the following scores: OSPAN absolute
scores, accuracy errors, and math errors; RSPAN speed errors, math errors, and total correct.
Discussion: Results demonstrated that training sustained attention using the APT tasks resulted in sizeable effects when delivered at high intensity (120 minutes per session) one time per week for six weeks. We saw improvement on the untrained selective and divided attention, but not alternating attention, which should have been easier, according the APT hierarchy. We cannot generalize these findings. However, the results give us evidence to continue treatment development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04082013-213532 |
| Date | 18 April 2013 |
| Creators | Ferguson, Kristen Michelle |
| Contributors | Donovan, Neila, Barker, Brittan, Hoffman, Paul |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04082013-213532/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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