Strategy Use Among People With Parkinson's Disease During the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Occupational Therapy
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Cognitive impairment is a common, participation-limiting aspect of Parkinson's disease (PD).
• Understanding strategy use in people with PD (PwPD) can inform interventions for occupational performance.
• Functional cognition is crucial for daily living and independence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate strategy use by PwPD during a functional cognitive task.
• To examine the relationship between strategy use and task performance in PwPD.
• To compare strategy use and performance between PwPD with normal cognition and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study design.
• Participants: 51 PwPD without dementia, divided into PD with normal cognition (PD-NC; n=27) and PD with MCI (PD-MCI; n=24).
• Outcome measures: Performance (accuracy, time, efficiency) and strategy use on the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA).

Main Results:

• Increased strategy use correlated with higher accuracy and longer task completion time in the overall PD group.
• PD-NC group demonstrated higher accuracy and utilized more strategies than the PD-MCI group.
• Specific strategies (e.g., "enter fixed appointments first") were linked to higher accuracy in the PD-NC group, while strategy use did not correlate with performance in the PD-MCI group.

Conclusions:

• PwPD utilize cognitive strategies to support functional cognition, with varying effectiveness based on cognitive status.
• Optimizing strategy selection and use may enhance occupational performance in PwPD.
• Interventions targeting cognitive strategy use could benefit PwPD, particularly those with MCI.