Objective:Accumulating evidence suggests that wakeful rest (a period of minimal cognitive stimulation) enhances memory in clinical populations with memory impairment. However, no study has previously examined the efficacy of this technique in stroke survivors, despite the high prevalence of post-stroke memory difficulties. We aimed to investigate whether wakeful rest enhances verbal memory in stroke survivors and healthy controls.Method:Twenty-four stroke survivors and 24 healthy controls were presented with two short stories; one story was followed by a 10-minute period of wakeful rest and the other was followed by a 10-minute visual interference task. A mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) with pairwise comparisons was used to compare participants’ story retention at two time points.Results:After 15–30 minutes, stroke survivors (p = .002, d = .73), and healthy controls (p = .001, d = .76) retained more information from the story followed by wakeful rest, compared with the story followed by an interference task. While wakeful rest remained the superior condition in healthy controls after 7 days (p = .01, d = .58), the beneficial effect was not maintained in stroke survivors (p = .35, d = .19).Conclusions:Wakeful rest is a promising technique, which significantly enhanced verbal memory after 15–30 minutes in both groups; however, no significant benefit of wakeful rest was observed after 7 days in stroke survivors. Preliminary findings suggest that wakeful rest enhances early memory consolidation processes by protecting against the effects of interference after learning in stroke survivors.

中文翻译：

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学习后短暂的清醒休息可增强中风幸存者的言语记忆

目的：越来越多的证据表明，清醒的休息（一段最小的认知刺激）可以增强临床记忆障碍人群的记忆力。然而，尽管中风后记忆困难的患病率很高，但以前没有研究检查过这种技术对中风幸存者的疗效。我们旨在调查清醒休息是否能增强中风幸存者和健康对照者的言语记忆。一个故事之后是 10 分钟的清醒休息时间，另一个故事之后是 10 分钟的视觉干扰任务。使用带有成对比较的混合因子方差分析 (ANOVA) 来比较参与者在两个时间点的故事保留情况。结果：15-30 分钟后，中风幸存者 (p= .002,d= .73) 和健康对照 (p= .001,d= .76）从故事中保留更多信息，然后是清醒休息，与故事之后是干扰任务相比。而清醒的休息在 7 天后仍然是健康对照组的优越条件（p= .01,d= .58），中风幸存者没有维持有益效果（p= .35,d= .19). 结论：清醒休息是一种很有前途的技术，它在 15-30 分钟后显着增强了两组的语言记忆；然而，中风幸存者在 7 天后没有观察到清醒休息的显着益处。初步研究结果表明，清醒休息通过防止中风幸存者学习后干扰的影响来增强早期记忆巩固过程。