There is growing evidence that people with mild dementia can benefit from using tablets and apps. Due to their cognitive decline, people with dementia need support in learning how to use these devices. The objective of this review was to identify which training interventions work best to help people with mild dementia (re)learn how to use technologies, including handheld touchscreen devices. Because the uptake of these devices in people with dementia is quite new, training interventions for the use of other technologies were also included, such as technologies assisting people in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL).

An electronic search was conducted in the following databases: PubMed, APA PsycInfo (EBSCO), and CINAHL (EBSCO). Themes discussed include the learning effects; training method (e.g. errorful (EF) and errorless (EL) learning); training intensity and setting; technology task type; dementia type and severity; and study design and outcome measures.

In total, 16 studies were included. All studies reported positive learning effects and improved task performance in people with dementia, regardless of dementia severity, training intensity, setting, and the method used. Although the EL training method was successful more often than the EF training method, it would be inappropriate to conclude that the EL method is more effective, because the majority of studies only investigated EL training interventions with (multiple) single-case study designs.

Future research should consider using more robust study designs, such as RCTs, to evaluate the effectiveness of training interventions for (re)learning technology-orientated tasks, including operating handheld touchscreen devices.

Errorless learning is a promising rehabilitation principle for learning tasks in patients with amnesia, including patients with Korsakoff's syndrome. Errorless learning might possibly also contribute to decreases in behavioral and psychiatric problems, as patients in long-term care facilities become more independent after training. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of errorless learning on potential changes in psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression and apathy, in contrast with a control group who received care as usual.

The current study is a quasi-experimental study on errorless learning and psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome, living in long-term care facilities for patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) in the Netherlands. The GIP-28, HoNOS−ABI, and NVCL−20 were administered to a group of patients with KS who received errorless learning training (n = 51) and a patient control group who received care as usual (n = 31). Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests were performed to examine psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy at baseline and at follow-up in the errorless learning group and the control group.

Errorless learning training effectively reduced psychotic symptoms (including provoked confabulations), affective symptoms, and agitation/aggression. There were no significant changes (increases nor decreases) in the control group. Levels of apathy were stable over time in both groups.

Results with respect to psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy are discussed in depth. Patients with KS can become more autonomous in a cared for setting using errorless learning principles. This might also result in decreases in behavioral and psychiatric problems in patients.

Previous findings revealed that the acquisition of new semantic concepts' labels was impaired in uncomplicated alcoholic patients. The use of errorless learning may therefore allow them to improve learning performance. However, the flexibility of the new knowledge and the memory processes involved in errorless learning remain unclear.

New concepts' labels acquisition was examined in 15 alcoholic patients and 15 control participants in an errorless learning condition compared with 19 alcoholic patients and 19 control subjects in a trial-and-error learning condition. The flexibility of the new information was evaluated using different photographs from those used in the learning sessions but representing the same concepts. All of the participants carried out an additional explicit memory task and an implicit memory task was also performed by subjects in the errorless learning condition.

The alcoholic group in the errorless condition differed significantly from the alcoholic group in the trial-and-error condition but did not differ from the two control groups. There was no significant difference between results in the learning test and the flexibility task. Finally, in the alcoholic group, the naming score in the learning test was correlated with the explicit memory score but not with the implicit memory score.

Using errorless learning, alcoholics improved their abilities to learn new concepts' labels. Moreover, new knowledge acquired with errorless learning was flexible. The errorless learning advantage may rely on explicit rather than implicit memory processes in these alcohol-dependent patients presenting only mild to moderate deficits of explicit memory capacities.