Clinical interventions for children with memory impairments
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Do clinical interventions improve memory function in children with Traumatic Brain Injury?
IRAS ID
243355
Contact name
Frederique Liegois
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 12 days
Research summary
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) refers to damage to the brain due to an external force often due to falls or road traffic accidents. TBI is a leading cause of death and disability amongst children. Despite this, there is little research on TBI amongst children and particularly with regards to clinical interventions to improve some of the long term effects of childhood TBI, such as difficulties remembering facts or paying attention.
Memory difficulties can have lasting impact on a child’s ability to learn and thrive and integrate in to the world around them. To date, there is no gold standard cognitive intervention for memory impairment in children and instead, adult models have been used to guide treatment.
More recently, a new model, the paediatric neurocognitive intervention (PNI) model has been proposed that takes in to account that the child is growing, in order to guide how the child is helped with their difficulties after brain injury.
This research project will be a pilot study to measure whether this intervention type improves memory after brain injury in children. 6 children with TBI (>1 year post injury) will take part in multiple baseline pilot study of memory intervention, developed using the PNI model. Intervention will be staggered between participants, by two month intervals (similar to typical waitlist timings) and will be made up of six, weekly sessions with a Chartered Clinical Psychologist. Intervention sessions will last for around one hour and involve practising memory techniques through the use of games and activities, such as creating stories or visual maps, depending on the nature of the memory difficulty. Memory performance will be measured before and after intervention to find out if there has been an improvement in memory performance. This will help us find out if there has been an improvement in memory.
REC name
London - Bloomsbury Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1349
Date of REC Opinion
10 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion