The use of novel measures to detect Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The use of novel measures to detect Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting (ALF).
IRAS ID
218359
Contact name
Thomas Laverick
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 1 days
Research summary
The use of novel measures, and an improved design, to detect Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting (ALF).
- Can the Crimes test and Four doors test be used to detect ALF?Accelerated Long-term Forgetting (ALF) is a memory problem where information is learnt and remembered for up to 30 minutes, but is then forgotten at an accelerated rate when measured hours, days, weeks and months later. ALF has been found to occur with some people who have a diagnosis of epilepsy. Epilepsy is when someone has seizures within their brain.
Current tests of memory focus on memory over short delays of 30-45 minutes. Therefore, some people may report poor memory, but can perform normally on current memory tests. This could mean that certain memory problems are not found.
It is also possible that ALF has only been found as the quality of past research has been poor. This study would attempt to improve the quality of ALF research. This might help us to be more confident that ALF is a real memory problem, and not just due to poor research design. We plan to use two new tests to measure how much information people forget over time.
The memory tests we will use will be the Crimes Test and the Four Doors Test. People’s memory will be tested straight after these tests, and again after 30 minutes. Later testing will then be by telephone (after 24 hours and one week later).
People with epilepsy will be recruited from the neurology outpatient clinic at James Cook Hospital, Middlesbrough. Another group of people, without epilepsy, will also be recruited.REC name
London - Surrey Borders Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0994
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jul 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion