T. D. Withiel et al.
participate and were randomized into MSG (n = 24),
CCT (n = 22) or WC (n = 19) groups. There was a
21% rate of attrition at the 6-week follow-up (27%,
25% and 11% drop-out rate for CCT, MSG and WC,
respectively).
While all participants self-reported memory dif-
ficulties, 64.6% also displayed evidence of memory
impairment on neuropsychological measures, defined
as at least 1.5 standard deviations (SD) away from
premorbid estimates on at least 1 memory task. Groups
were matched on demographic and baseline memory
performances (see Table II). However, there were
significantly more left hemisphere stroke survivors
in the MSG and a significantly greater proportion of
patients with haemorrhages in the CCT training condi-
tion relative to other groups. To account for this, these
stroke characteristics were included as covariates when
modelling outcomes.
With respect to treatment adherence, 2 participants
missed one MSG session, while the remaining partici-
pants attended all sessions (83%). Participants alloca-
ted to CCT training completed a mean of 25 training
sessions (83%; SD training =16.01; range 3–43 sessions).
The majority (74%) of WC participants preferentially
selected LU as their intervention of choice following
completion of the project.
346
Fig. 2. Estimated marginal means (±SE) of goal attainment T scores
by group controlling for aetiology and hemisphere of infarction.
**Significance at p≤0.01.
Attrition analysis suggested that those participants
who withdrew or could not be re-contacted for assess-
ment reported significantly more prospective memory
failures than completers (see Table SIII). No other
significant differences were seen.
Treatment outcomes
Primary outcome: goal attainment. There was a sta-
tistically significant interaction between group and
time-point when modelling change in goal attainment
scores in favour of the MSG (Table III, Fig. 2). Post-
hoc analysis demonstrated that participants allocated
to the MSG showed significantly greater attainment
of individualized memory goals between baseline
and post-intervention assessment rela-
tive to WC (see Table SIV 1 ). Gains were
maintained at follow-up, with participants
allocated to the MSG displaying signifi-
cantly greater attainment of memory goals
relative to both CCT and WC participants.
Descriptive analysis found that 83% of
participants in the MSG reported attaining
at least one memory goal (40% achieved
both memory goals), while 60% and 70%
of participants in WC and CCT described
attaining a memory goal, respectively.
Secondary outcomes
Fig. 1. Flow of participants through each stage of the study. CCT: computerized cognitive
training; MSG: memory skills group; WC: waitlist control.
www.medicaljournals.se/jrm
Objective memory. Visual and verbal
new learning and memory performances
did not significantly differ across groups
following intervention (see Table IV). Re-
garding verbal WM, there were no signi-
ficant interaction effects when modelling
outcomes. There was a significant interac-
tion between intervention and time when
modelling visual WM outcomes, whereby
participants allocated to the MSG demon-
strated significant improvement from
baseline performance at post-intervention
and follow-up. However, the performance