0-TESTO COMPLETO.pdf - Fondazione Santa Lucia

RF07.39.3 – Cognitive and behavioural indicators of conversion from mild cognitive impairment…
training of memory and attention of MCI patients also outside the hospital
setting, in order to allow a more extensive and less expensive cognitive training
of patients at risk of dementia.
Also, a subsample of caregivers of 30 MCI patients will undergo psychometric
evaluation at baseline and at the three and six-month follow-up. At
this purpose the following instruments will be used: 1) Caregiver Needs
Assessment (CNA). It will be constructed ad hoc in order to inspect physical-functional,
cognitive-behavioural, socio-relational and domestic needs
perceived by caregivers concerning the care delivery process; 2) Anxiety and
depression schedule (AD-R). This is a short version of the Depression questionnaire
(QD-15) and of the STAI-X3; 3) Family Strain Questionnaire
(FSQ), aimed at assessing emotional overburden, social involvement, the
disease- related information needs and the quality of domestic relationships.
Two different psychological support programs will be set up, one defined as
light support (LP) and one defined as intensive (IP) support. Caregivers will
be randomly assigned to one of the above-mentioned support programs. LP
program entails 3 psychological interviews in a 6 month period (baseline,
three and six-month follow-up), aimed at the emotional support of caregivers.
All subjects will be included during the first 6 months period of the project.
All diagnostic, cognitive and neuropsychiatric tests will be administered
every six months until 18 months from the first evaluation.
Cross-sectional analyses at the baseline: comparison among MCI diagnostic
groups on categorical variables will be performed using the chi-square test.
Comparisons on sociodemographic characteristics (i.e. age and educational
level), cognitive level, and neuropsychiatric symptom severity will be performed
using factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Fisher’s Protected
Least Significant Difference (PLSD) post-hoc test. In order to minimize
the likelihood of type-I error, univariate ANOVAs will be preceded by overall
Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) using all the continuous categories
considered in each of the analyses as dependent variables. Factorial
ANOVA will be used at the baseline separately for the 4 subtypes of MCI and
for the MCI groups identified at the end of the follow-up as converter or nonconverter.
Longitudinal analyses during the follow-up: The cognitive and neuropsychiatric
scores during follow-up assessment will be analyzed using repeated
measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with the different MCI subtypes as a
between-subjects factor and time as a within-subjects factor with six levels.
The level of statistical significance is defined as p