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Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training (SMART) in multiple sclerosis (MS): study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial
Abstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic condition of the central nervous system, affecting around 1 in every 600 people in the UK, with 130 new diagnoses every week. Cognitive difficulties are common amongst people with MS, with up to 70% experiencing deficits in higher-level brain functions—such as planning and problem-solving, attention, and memory. Cognitive deficits make it difficult for people with MS to complete everyday tasks and limit their abilities to work, socialise, and live independently. There is a clear need—and recognised research priority—for treatments that can improve cognitive functioning in people with MS. The absence of effective cognitive interventions exacerbates burdens on the services accessed by people with MS—requiring these services to manage sequelae of untreated cognitive deficits, including reduced quality of life, greater disability and dependence, and poorer adherence to disease-modifying treatments. Our planned research will fill the evidence gap through developing—and examining the feasibility of trialling—a novel online cognitive rehabilitation programme for people with MS (SMART). The SMART programme directly trains relational skills (the ability to flexibly relate concepts to one another) based on theory that these skills are critical to broader cognitive functioning.
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Date
2022
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Article
Subject
Multiple sclerosis, Rehabilitation
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Golijani-Moghaddam, N., Dawson, D. L., Evangelou, N., Turton, J., Hawton, A., Law, G. R., Roche, B., Burge, R., Frost, A. & das Nair, R. (2022). Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training (SMART) in multiple sclerosis (MS): study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial. Pilot and Feasibility Studies, 8 (1), pp.195.
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© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
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mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data