Improved cognitive function in schizophrenia after one year of cognitive training and vocational services

Abstract

A year-long program of Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy (NET) was used to remediate cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia who were participating in a vocational program Seventy-two stable outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, recruited from an urban community mental health center were randomly assigned to a 12 month vocational program (VOC) or NET + VOC. The vocational program had characteristics of individual placement and support (IPS) programs but also included transitional funding. NET included computer-based cognitive training exercises, a social information processing group and a work feedback group. Sixtytwo participants completed a neuropsychological test battery before and after treatment. After one year of treatment, participants receiving NET+VOC had significantly greater improvements on measures of executive function and working memory than did participants in the VOC only condition. Augmenting vocational services with a multifaceted cognitive remediation program may improve cognition in participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Computer-based Cognitive and Socio-emotional Training in Psychopathology

“…The authors found that the combination of NET with WT showed greater improvements on measures of executive functions and working memory. These results were replicated in a latter study that also investigated NET combined with a vocational therapy (Greig et al, 2007). Following a similar path, Vauth and colleagues (2005) tested the combination of a computer-assisted cognitive training with vocational rehabilitation.…”

“…Few studies evaluated the possible impact on social abilities. Bell and colleagues (2001) report a progression of affect recognition, but this result was not replicated in a latter study (Greig et al, 2007). Hogarty and colleagues (2004) assessed social competencies in a two years randomized controlled trial including 121 patients.…”

“…Hence, the studies presented here have been selected on the basis that they employ assessment tasks that are different from tasks used during training. Several randomized controlled trials have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of CACR in schizophrenia (Bell et al, 2001;Bellucci et al, 2002;Burda et al, 1994;Field et al, 1997;Greig et al, 2007;Hogarty et al, 2004;Kurtz et al, 2007;Medalia et al, 2000;Medalia et al, 2001;Sartory et al, 2005;Vauth et al, 2005). Most have reported improvements of cognitive performances, with some exceptions as for example Field and colleagues (1997) and Medalia and colleagues (2000).…”

Memory Profiles in Schizophrenia: Categorization Validity and Stability

“…Participants in both conditions received identical vocational services (Greig et al 2004a) but participants in NET + VOC received computer-based cognitive remediation in addition to vocational services. Published reports showing favorable cognitive and vocational outcomes for NET+VOC in the original study are available elsewhere (Bell et al 2008b;Greig et al 2007). The extension of the study has involved some changes in the vocational services, an update of the cognitive training software and the introduction of the MATRICS battery, and is on-going.…”

Reabilitação vocacional e suas implicações no funcionamento cognitivo de pacientes esquizofrênicos

“…Apenas o grupo de Greig et al (2007) complexos. Para testar esta hipótese, executamos um experimento randomizado e controlado para investigar o efeito de um programa de reabilitação vocacional com 6 meses de duração no desempenho cognitivo de pacientes esquizofrênicos remitidos.…”