Does the ACTIVE study mean that any form of cognitive training is effective?
No. The scientists who developed the training programs used in the ACTIVE study made very specific decisions regarding the specific details of those training programs. The study demonstrated that these training programs provided correspondingly specific and unique benefits. For example, only participants in the reasoning training program showed improvements on reasoning skills, and only participants in the UFOV-technology-based training program showed improvements in health-related quality of life. This means that the specific details of cognitive training programs matter—and that new cognitive training programs that are different from these three need to specifically demonstrate effectiveness in randomized controlled trials.
