Recruiting

Observational Study

Sponsor:

Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest

Code:

NCT03638882

Conditions

Executive Function

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 65 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Duolingo

BrainHQ

Passive Control

Study Details

Brief summary:

Bilingualism has been shown to have a strong protective effect against dementia, delaying the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease by up to 4 years. The purpose of the study is to test whether learning a second language using Duolingo software could improve cognitive functions in older adults.

Conditions

Executive Function

Study ID

NCT03638882

Start date

Aug 1, 2018

Status verified date

Sep, 2019

Completion date

Oct 1, 2020

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Jun 1, 2020

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 65 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Participants must have normal vision and hearing.
  • Participants must be able to travel to Baycrest by personal or study-arranged automobile, or public transportation.
  • Participants must be monolingual native English speakers.
  • Participants must be willing to provide informed consent.
  • Participants must have daily access to a smartphone/mobile device.
  • Have not previously studied Spanish formally, nor any other language in the past 10 years.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • have a neurological disorder.
  • meet DSM-IV-TR criteria for Axis I mood, anxiety, or psychotic or substance abuse disorders.
  • Fluent in more than one language.

Study Design

Enrollment

90 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Prevention

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Duolingo Spanish Course

30 minutes each day, 5 days a week for 16 weeks. Total of 40 hours.

active comparator: BrainHQ

30 minutes each day, 5 days a week for 16 weeks. Total of 40 hours.

placebo comparator: Passive Control

No intervention.

Interventions

Duolingo

Will learn Spanish using the commercially available Duolingo application. It is a computerized language training program.

BrainHQ

Will use the commercially available Posit Science product Brain HQ. Brain HQ is a computerized adaptive cognitive brain training program.

Passive Control

No Intervention.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in working memory, n-back [ Time Frame: change from baseline to 16 weeks ]
  • Change in inhibitory Control, Simon task [ Time Frame: change from baseline to 16 weeks ]
  • Change in inhibitory Control, DKEFS [ Time Frame: change from baseline to 16 weeks ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Jed Meltzer, Ph.D.

416-785-2500jmeltzer@research.baycrest.org

Locations

Baycrest Health Sciences

Recruiting

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6A 2E1

Contacts

Jed Meltzer, Ph.D.

416-785-2500jmeltzer@research.baycrest.org

More Information

Sponsor

Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest

Last update posted

Sep 19, 2019

Last verified

Sep, 2019

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest on 2019-09-19.