Effectiveness of Captain Log Cognitive Rehabilitation Software on Auditory and Spatial Working Memory of People with Depressive Symptoms

Due to the prevalence of depression and the existence of weakness in the functions of depressed people, it seems necessary to study and evaluate various treatment methods in the field of cognitive functions, including working memory.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Captain Log cognitive rehabilitation software on auditory and spatial working memory of people with depressive symptoms in Ahvaz.

The method of this research was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest design and control group. The population of this study included all people with depressive symptoms who referred to psychology and psychiatric centers in Ahvaz and the web pages of these centers in 2009-2010. The sample of this study included 30 subjects with symptoms of depression who announced their admission to these centers and were matched in terms of having criteria for entering the research such as acquering a score of 14-28 based on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and one standared deviation below the mean on the Wechsler Active Memory Profile Test - Third Edition) were selected. After matching in terms of gender, age, education, socio-economic status, lack of acute physical, psychological diseases and other criterias considered in this research were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group administered cognitive rehabilitation for 10 sessions using Captain Log software, but the control group did not receive any intervention. After the intervention and post-test, the data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA) and analysis of covariance(ANCOVA) by SPSS-24.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of auditory and spatial working memory (p <0.001). The rate of auditory and spatial active memory in the experimental group compared to the pretest and control groups significantly increased. Captain Log cognitive rehabilitation software has a significant effect on the auditory and spatial working memory of depressed people (p <0.001).