Innovative Multimodal and Attention Training to Improve Emotion Communication in Veterans With TBI and PTSD
VA Office of Research and Development
Summary
Poor emotion recognition has been associated with poor quality of interpersonal relationships, loss of employment, behavioral problems, reduced social reintegration, social isolation and even suicide. Deficits in emotion recognition are common in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but these deficits have not been well studied in Veterans with both mild TBI (mTBI) and PTSD. Currently there are no interventions for emotion recognition in Veterans with mTBI and PTSD, and interventions for severe TBI have lacked training of both facial and vocal emotion recognition. In a preliminary study of an innovative combination of facial and vocal modalities, a multimodal affect recognition training (MMART) showed promise but lacked attention training that is an essential component in recognizing emotions in our daily lives. Given the need to improve relationships and productivity in Veterans with mTBI and PTSD, a study is needed to determine the effectiveness of a MMART combined with attention training.
Description
Background. Deficits in emotion recognition are common in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but these deficits have not been well studied in Veterans with both mild TBI (mTBI) and PTSD. Poor emotion recognition has been associated with poor quality of interpersonal relationships, loss of employment, behavioral problems, reduced social reintegration, social isolation and even suicide. Currently there are no interventions for emotion recognition deficits in Veterans with mTBI and PTSD, and interventions conducted in civilians with severe TBI have lacked tr…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 25–50 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Veterans with a diagnosis of mTBI and PTSD based on VA/Department of Defense guidelines. * Emotion recognition deficit * Attention deficit * Corrected vision within normal limits * Hearing within normal limits * Fluent in English Exclusion Criteria: * premorbid history of schizophrenia * bipolar disorder * chronic medical or neurological diseases
Interventions
- BehavioralMultimodal affect recognition training
8 session, trains participants to recognize expression of emotion from a variety of stimuli, including dynamic stimuli (e.g., video instead of still pictures) and it employs both facial and vocal examples of emotion expression.
- BehavioralAttention Training
computerized attention drill training
- BehavioralBrain Health Workshop
an education presentation on brain function and cognitive principles of learning with homework and quizzes on information covered.
- BehavioralNational Geographic Movies
participant will watch movies and answer questions after
Location
- North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, Gainesville, FLGainesville, Florida