The effectiveness of the implementation of Rehacom Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy on cognitive function of the elderly with normal cognition, MCI, and mild Alzheimer: A pilot study

The effectiveness of the implementation of Rehacom Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy on cognitive function of the elderly with normal cognition, MCI, and mild Alzheimer: A pilot study

72 elderly people will be entered into the study based on the inclusion criteria. The elderly will be divided into two groups based on their cognitive status and educational status based on random allocation. This study is a single blinded study and the study subjects will not be aware of the study groups. At first, all the elderly will be evaluated using the initial evaluation of Rehacom software. The control group will not receive any program. The elderly in the intervention group will undergo cognitive rehabilitation for 8 weeks, two 45-minute sessions per week with Rehacom software.

The statistical population of the study will be the elderly who refer to the daycare centers of Gorgan City. Informed consent will be obtained at the beginning of the research. The primary assessment of the elderly will be done by using the MoCA form and the GDS-15 form. The elderly will be entered into the study if they meet other inclusion criteria.

Being older than 65 years Literate person (having at least a diploma) Obtaining a score of 11 and greater on the MoCA Obtaining a score of less than 8 on the GDS-15 (Geriatric Depression Scale-15) Ability to speak Persian Having a personal desire to participate in the study Having no epilepsy, vision problems, hearing, or severe disabilities Having a formal or informal caregiver

The intervention group will receive the cognitive rehabilitation program. The control group is evaluated only at the beginning and end of the study.

The processing speed and the difficulty of the test during 2 months (16 sessions) before and after the intervention in two groups.

In order to evenly distribute people based on their cognitive status into two intervention and control groups; the participants will be divided into three groups based on the scores obtained from the MoCA form, the elderly with normal cognitive status and the elderly with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and elderly with mild Alzheimer's will be randomly assigned in two intervention and control groups. The random assignment of the elderly will be done based on the cognitive and educational status of the elderly. The Stratified random block method will be done based on education level (diploma, Associate/Bachelor degree, Master's degree or higher) and cognitive status (normal, MCI, mild Alzheimer's) and participants allocated to intervention and control groups. Based on education level and cognitive status, 6 stratifications will be formed. Within each stratify; the method of random blocks of 6 will be used to assign participants to two groups A (intervention) and group B (control). For this, the list of blocks is first written and numbers are assigned to them AABB(1)- ABAB(2)-ABBA(3)-BBAA(4) and the order of these blocks will be determined randomly by Excell software.

This study will be a single-blinded randomized clinical trial. Therefore, the participants of the study will not be informed from the study groups (intervention-control). For this purpose, sampling of the participants in the intervention and control groups will be done from different centers in the city. The possibility of blinding the researcher is not possible due to the mastery of Rehacom evaluation software.

Considering that part of the information is related to the elderly with mild Alzheimer's and MCI, the research team prefers that the information is not available to other people except the research team.