Enhancing treatment outcomes of Alcohol Use Disorder patients through ICT-based cognitive training tools: a...

Individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD) often face cognitive impairments that hinder long-term abstinence. While structured AUD interventions are effective, they don't guarantee abstinence maintenance, and cognitive training (CT) is rarely integrated. CT could be crucial for rehabilitating these deficits and preventing relapse, especially if personalized. This randomized controlled trial assessed the impact of adding personalized CT to standard AUD treatment. Sixty participants were randomized into three groups: 1) Virtual Reality (VR) CT using activity-of-daily-living simulations (Reh@City - RC), 2) paper-and-pencil CT via a web platform (Task Generator - TG), and 3) time-matched treatment as usual (TAU). The intervention included 12, 30-minute sessions, with pre-, post-intervention, and follow-up neuropsychological assessments. At post-intervention, experimental groups showed broader cognitive improvements. The RC group improved in naming, executive functions, fluency, inhibitory control, processing speed, attention, and visual memory. The TG group showed gains in general cognitive functioning, executive functions, abstraction, sensitivity to interference, processing speed, attention, and visual memory. The TAU group's improvements were observed in executive functions, abstraction, processing speed, attention, and visual memory. Personalized cognitive training is effective for AUD-related cognitive deficits. The VR approach (RC) particularly impacted inhibitory control, processing speed, and sustained attention-domains critically affected in this population. Future research should explore the CT role in preventing relapse.