---
title: Improve working memory and planning
nct_id: NCT04229056
phase: NA
status: RECRUITING
sponsor: Bispebjerg Hospital
study_type: INTERVENTIONAL
canonical_url: "https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT04229056"
clinicaltrials_gov: "https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04229056"
last_fetched: "2026-05-10T14:06:54.116Z"
source: "Parkinson's Pathways (curated)"
---
# Improve working memory and planning

**Goal (in five words):** Improve working memory and planning

**Official Title:** Computer-Assisted Self-Training to Improve Executive Function Versus Unspecific Training in Patients After Stroke, Cardiac Arrest or in Parkinson's Disease: a Randomized Controlled Trial

**Trial ID:** [NCT04229056](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04229056)

## Key Facts

- **Phase:** NA
- **Status:** RECRUITING
- **Study Type:** INTERVENTIONAL
- **Sponsor:** Bispebjerg Hospital
- **Target Enrollment:** 307 participants
- **Start Date:** 2020-06-01
- **Completion Date:** 2025-12-31
- **Conditions:** Parkinson Disease, Stroke, Cardiac Arrest, Cognitive Dysfunction, Executive Dysfunction
- **Interventions:** Computer-based cognitive rehabilitation (CBCR), General computer-based cognitive stimulation
- **Intervention Types:** BEHAVIORAL

## Summary For Families

The goal is to boost executive skills, especially working memory and everyday planning, that often decline in Parkinson's and cause real-life problems with thinking and multitasking. The approach is computer-assisted self-training made of repeated, adaptive exercises that target working memory, attention, and planning, compared with unspecific computer-based cognitive stimulation; it retrains brain networks through practice rather than using a drug. This is a non-drug, at-home program done over the internet and it does not replace or change levodopa or other anti-parkinsonian medications. Adults 18 to 100 with a clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's, on anti-parkinsonian treatment, with impaired working memory on the CABPad test (5 symbols or less backwards), internet access, and without Parkinson's dementia are eligible.

## Eligibility

- **Minimum age:** 18 Years
- **Maximum age:** 100 Years
- **Sex:** ALL

### Full Criteria

```
Inclusion Criteria:

* A diagnose of stroke, cardiac arrest or Parkinson's disease.
* Aged 18 years or older.
* Impaired working memory measured with CABPad working memory test, cut off for inclusion: 5 symbols or less backwards
* Computer and internet access at home.
* Providing informed consent.

Inclusion criteria specific for stroke

* Inclusion within 6 months post-stroke
* Stroke confirmed by clinical findings and imaging, both AIS and ICH is allowed.
* Initial stroke severity \>/= NIHSS 3.

Inclusion criteria specific for cardiac arrest

• Inclusion within 6 months post ictus.

Inclusion criteria specific for Parkinson's disease

* Clinical diagnosis of PD.
* Anti-parkinsonian medical treatment (dopaminergic or other).

Exclusion Criteria:

* Informed consent not provided
* Other neurological or psychiatric disease which is expected to influence the patient's ability to participate in the trial according to the investigator
* Not able to participate according to investigator

Exclusion criteria specific for stroke

* Patients with massive anosognosia for executive dysfunction or patients with no subjective feeling of executive dysfunction (Patient sustains total denial of executive symptoms over time)
* Patients with severe aphasia, in which it is unclear whether the patient's performance on a neuropsychological test-battery is due to aphasia and not executive dysfunction.

Exclusion criteria specific for cardiac arrest • None

Exclusion criteria specific for PD

• Diagnosis of PD Dementia according to the MDS PD Dementia criteria
```

## Locations (2)

- Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark _(55.6759, 12.5655)_
  - Hanne Christensen, MD, Professor — (CONTACT)
- Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark _(55.6759, 12.5655)_
  - Jesper Kjaergaard, MD — (CONTACT)

## Central Contacts

- Hanne Christensen, Professor — (CONTACT) — +45 38 63 50 70 — hanne.krarup.christensen@regionh.dk
- Katrine Sværke, M.Sc. Psych. — (CONTACT) — 004521251087 — katrine.svaerke.schioeler@regionh.dk

---

*Canonical: https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT04229056*  
*HTML version: https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT04229056*  
*Source data: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04229056*