Department of PsychologyMaureen Schmitter-Edgecombe

Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe

  1. Regents Professor
Email Addressschmitter-e@wsu.edu
LocationJohnson Tower 312
Phone509-335-0170

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Memphis, 1994

Biography

Websites

Research Areas

Clinical and Cognitive Neuropsychology; Everyday Functioning; Memory and Executive Abilities; Rehabilitation; Smart and Assistive Technologies; Aging and Cognitively Impaired Populations (e.g., MCI, AD, PD).

Research Narrative

My research focuses on investigating relationships between cognition and everyday functioning, and on developing interventions and smart technologies that will help delay functional disability and increase the quality of life of healthy older adults and those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). I have published widely on topics investigating age-related cognitive decline, cognitive deficits associated with neurodegenerative diseases, and preventative and compensatory treatments for older adults and individuals with ADRDs. My brain health and technology-based intervention work is designed to improve human health, decrease caregiver burden and impact health care delivery for older adults and individuals with cognitive impairment. My work has involved using continuous sensor-based data collection methods (e.g., smart home, wearables, ecological momentary assessment) to improve understanding of functional changes that occur with aging and neurodegenerative diseases, inform clinical health assessment, and promote real-time interventions within the naturalistic environment. My work has also documented characteristics of cognitive and functional changes that occur along the continuum of healthy aging through ADRDs.

Howard Hosick Student Research Fund

Donate to the Howard Hosick Student Research Fund

Howard Hosick was a professor of Zoology and Genetics at WSU for 34 years. Late in 2004 he began to have memory and administrative function difficulties, and finally in April of 2006 he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 62. During that time he found out about a class that was going to be held for people with memory issues and their spouses, given by Dr.
Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe. As a result of this experience, Dr. Hosick was able to use a memory notebook for the next two or three years. Dr. Hosick’s wife, Cynthia, was his primary caregiver. Because of her experience, Dr. Schmitter-Edgecombe invited her to join class panels about memory issues and caregiving challenges, and to participate in some related research to find technology that could be helpful for a memory-impaired person. Dr. Hosick had some research funds remaining after his retirement. The personal help the Hosicks gratefully received from Maureen’s research, and the ensuing friendship between Dr. Schmitter-Edgecombe and Mrs. Hosick, led to the decision to donate the funds to be used for graduate student support in Maureen’s lab.

Current Funded Grants

  • Creating Adaptive, Wearable Technologies to Assess and Intervene for Individuals with ADRDs.. National Institute of Aging. #R35 AG071451, 2021-2026. $4,590,000. PI.
  • Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Training Program in Health-assistive Smart Environments for Older Adults. National Institute on Aging. #R25 AG046114, 2021-2026, renewal. $1,837,165. PI.
  • Compensation Training and Lifestyle Modifications to promote Healthy Aging in Persons at Risk for Alzheimer’s disease: A Digital Application Supported Intervention National Institute on Aging. #R01 AGO66748, 2020-2025. $3,517,278. PI.
  • Multi-modal Assessment and Intervention for Functional Independence.  National Institute on Aging. #R01 AG065218, 2020-2025. $2,992,391. PI.
  • A Digital Memory Notebook to Support Everyday Functioning, Decrease Caregiver Burden and Track Health Status. Department of Defense. AZ190055; 2020-2025. $1,299,515. PI.

Selected Recent Publications (see vita for full list):

*indicates graduate student

  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Luna, C., *Beech, B., Dai, S., & Cook, D. J. (2024). Capturing cognitive capacity in the everyday environment across a continuum of cognitive decline using a smartwatch n-back task and ecological momentary assessment. Neuropsychology.
  • Sprint, G., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., & Cook, D. J. (2024). HDTwin: Building a Human Digital Twin using Large Language Models for Cognitive Diagnosis Prediction. JMIR Formative Research.
  • *Beech, B. F., **Almeria, A. T., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2024). Efficacy of Digital and Non-Digital Compensatory Strategies in Supporting Prospective Memory Task Completion among Community-Dwelling Mid-Life and Older Adults, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, acae030, https://doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acae030.
  • *Boyd, B., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2024). One-Year Impact of a Multidomain Brain Health Intervention on Cognition and Behavior Change for Midlife and Older Adults: A Pilot Clinical Trial. Journal of Geriatric Medicine. 6(1), 18–34. DOI: 10.30564/jgm.v5i1.6303
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Brown, K., *Chilton, R., *Whitley, N., & Greeley, D. Naturalistic assessment of everyday multitasking in Parkinson’s disease with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment. (2024). The Clinical neuropsychologist. https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2024.2325681
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Luna, C., Dai, S., Cook, D. J. (2024). Predicting daily cognition and lifestyle behaviors for older adults using smart home data and ecological momentary assessment. The Clinical neuropsychologist. https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2024.2330143.
  • *Beech, B. F., *Sumida, C. A., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2024). Real-world compensatory strategy use in community-dwelling mid-life and older adults: An evaluation of quality. The Clinical neuropsychologist, 38(2), 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2023.2209927
  • Tomaszewski Farias, S., Fox, J., Dulaney, H., Chan, M., Namboodiri, S., Harvey, D. J., Weakley, A., *Rahman, S., *Luna, C., *Beech, B. F., Campbell, L., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2023). Memory support training and lifestyle modifications to promote healthy aging in persons at risk for Alzheimer’s disease: a digital application supported intervention (Brain Boosters). BMC geriatrics, 23, 881. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04574-x
  • *Brown, K.D., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2023). A Clinic-Based Measure of Everyday Planning Ability: The Overnight Trip Task. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, acad052, https://doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acad052
  • *Luna, C., Cook, D. J., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2023). But will they use it? Predictors of adoption of an electronic memory aid in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Neuropsychology, 37(8), 955–965. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000898
  • *Pagán, C. R., Arrotta, K., Chilton, R. C., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2023). Error monitoring in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: Cognitive correlates and relationship to measures of everyday function. Neuropsychology, 37(8), 933–942. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000887
  • *Chilton, R. L., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2023). Assessing functional ability of healthy adults with the Night Out Task. The Clinical neuropsychologist, 37(6), 1302–1320. https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2022.2096485
  • *Boyd, B., *McAlister, C., *Arrotta, K., & Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2022). Self-reported behavior change and predictors of engagement with a multidomain brain health intervention for midlife and older adults: a pilot clinical trial. Journal of Aging and Health, 34(1), 109-119. https://doi.org/10.1177/08982643211032483
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Brown, K., *Luna, C., *Chilton, R., *Sumida, C.A., Holder, L., & Cook, D. J. (2022). Partnering a compensatory application with activity-aware prompting to improve use in individuals with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: a randomized controlled pilot clinical trial. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 8, 73-90.
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *McAlister, C., & Greeley, D. (2022). A Comparison of Functional Abilities in Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Parkinson’s Disease with Mild Cognitive Impairment Using Multiple Assessment Methods. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society: JINS, 28(8), 798-809. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617721001077
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Cunningham, R., *McAlister, C., *Arrotta, K. & *Weakley, A. (2021). The Night Out Task and scoring application: an ill-structured, open-ended clinic-based test representing cognitive capacities used in everyday situations. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 36(4), 537-553. PMID: 33089318. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33089318/
  • Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., *Sumida, C. A., & Cook. D. J. (2020). Bridging the gap between performance-based assessment and self-reported everyday functioning: an ecological momentary assessment approach. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 34, 678-699. PMID 32189568. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32189568/

Edited Book

  • Marcotte, T., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., & Grant, I. Editors (2022). Neuropsychology of Everyday Functioning, Second Edition. Guilford Publications, Inc., New York, NY.

Lab Info

Neuropsychology and Aging Laboratory

The goal of this research program is to develop cognitive interventions that will help older individuals with progressive neurological disorders (e.g., AD, PD) delay functional disability and increase their quality-of-life. Participants in many of our studies are healthy older adults and early-stage dementia patients who complete standardized neuropsychological tests and cognitive experimental tasks that assess different cognitive skills (e.g., memory, problem-solving). By observing individuals completing complex tasks of daily living in our on-campus smart home environment, we have identified the role that specific memory and executive functioning deficits play in the poorer performances of healthy older adults and individuals with MCI relative to younger adults on complex real-world everyday tasks. We are currently completing a series of studies that involve observing participants completing everyday tasks of daily living as they natural do in their own home and community environments. We are especially interested in learning more about how compensatory strategy use and the role of the environment can support or hinder a person’s ability to remain functionally independent. We expect this work to enhance our intervention work and to assist in creating more ecological valid laboratory-based assessment measures and questionnaires and we are currently evaluating such measures.

Smart Home Assessment and Intervention: We also have several large grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to support collaborative work with computer scientists and engineers. This work involves developing smart environments and portable technologies for health monitoring and assistance.

We are conducting a 5-year longitudinal study of older adults performing daily activities in their own smart homes. By tracking residents’ daily behavior over a long period, we are working to develop intelligent software that can perform automated functional assessment and identify trends that are indicators of acute health changes (e.g., infection, injury) and slower progressive decline (e.g., dementia). We are also working to improve overall health and well-being of residents by delivering prompt-based interventions that support functional independence and promote healthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., social contact, exercise, regular sleep). In addition, we are working to improve our paper-and pencil notebook by creating an Electronic Memory and Management Aid (EMMA) application and allowing for real-time intervention by developing a smart home / EMMA partnership. Such a partnership would facilitate continued use of EMMA to support functional independence through activity recognition and context-aware prompting, and would offer improved interfaces over the pen-and-paper versions.

Brain Health Intervention: Accumulating evidence suggests that healthy lifestyle factors, as well as compensatory strategy use, can help to minimize the effect of cognitive aging. We are piloting holistic brain health intervention being administered in a group format. Older adult participants are being presented with information about healthy lifestyle factors that can influence cognitive aging, including: exercise, nutrition, sleep hygiene, social engagement, stress management, compensatory strategies, assistive technologies, and cognitive engagement. We are also using wearable technologies to track cognition and fluctuating everyday factors (e.g., fatigue, mood, environment) using ecological momentary assessment. This work builds on a group problem-solving model that we have successfully used in prior work to help teach individuals with mild cognitive impairment and their care-partners to integrate new memory strategies into their everyday lives. Most recently, we have been working with researchers at UC Davis assessing the efficacy of a synergistic intervention for individuals with subjective cognitive complaints that combines brain health with compensatory strategy training and makes use of the EMMA application to support the intervention and collect real-time data.

Media Links

Classes Taught

  • Psychology 198: Honors Introductory Psychology
  • Psychology 363: Psychology and Aging
  • Psychology 490: Cognition and Aging
  • Psychology 485/486: Gerontechnology 1 and 2
  • Psychology 537: Clinic Assessment Practicum
  • Psychology 575: Foundation of Neuropsychology