The effectiveness of ICT-based neurocognitive and psychosocial rehabilitation programmes in people with mild dementia and mild cognitive impairment using GRADIOR and ehcoBUTLER: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Cognitive rehabilitation is a highly individualised, non-pharmacological intervention for people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, which in recent years has also been developed for various IT platforms. METHODS: In this study, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the cognitive rehabilitation software GRADIOR in a multi-centre, single-blinded randomised controlled trial with people with MCI and mild dementia. A total of 400 people with MCI and mild dementia will be randomly allocated to one of four groups. This trial will compare the cognitive rehabilitation treatment using the GRADIOR programme with a psychosocial stimulation intervention (PSS) using the ehcoBUTLER platform, with a combined treatment consisting of GRADIOR and ehcoBUTLER, and with a group receiving treatment as usual during a period of 1 year. DISCUSSION: The outcomes of this clinical trial will be to determine any relevant changes in cognition, mood, quality of life, activities of daily living and quality of patient-carer relationship after 4 months and 1 year of intervention in a cross-sectional group comparison. Participants will be followed-up for 1 year to investigate potential long-term effects of the conducted treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN, ID: 15742788. Registered on 12 June 2017. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-017-2371-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.