IMPACT OF BRAIN TRAINING ACTIVITIES ON WORKING MEMORY AND AGE RELATED DIFFERENCES; A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

BACKGROUND & AIMS Working Memory is a set of information on which an individual plan actions. It forms a productive basis for accomplishing complex activities that require reasoning, learning, understanding and is classified into three domains; attention, executive function and short-term memory. Since, memory declines with increasing age it is predictive that training interventions can improve working memory of adults. METHODOLOGY A Randomized controlled trial included undergraduate students between 18–24 years of age from different universities in Karachi. The participants were divided in two groups. Group-A performed basic manual brain training activities while group-B performed computer and mobile based training activities. Data was collected by using Working memory questionnaire (WMQ), reliability of scale has been assessed by Cronbach's alpha on 30 items of scale and was 0.89. RESULTS A total of 300 participants were included in the study divided into Group-A (n=150) and Group-B (n=150) with 21.5±1.62 and 21.9±1.66 mean age respectively. The pre-intervention total working memory score of group-A is 65.6±5.72 of group-B is 64.9±6.13. Post-intervention total working memory score of group A is 66.9±6.11 and of group B is 66.92±6.99. CONCLUSION Working memory is malleable through advanced training in the post-intervention group and is strongly predictive of individual performance on different cognitive measures. Thus, training, strategy use and learning styles could be emphasized for a better adult generation