Occupational Therapy for Adults With Perceptual Deficits

Abstract

Although perceptual retraining has for many years been an accepted part of occupational therapy for adults with perceptual problems stemming from brain injury, few outcome studies on this type of treatment have been conducted. To assure high-quality, cost-effective rehabilitation programs for this population, occupational therapists need to do more research to (a) precisely define perceptual interventions and (b) determine the efficacy of different occupational therapy approaches to perceptual problems. This article offers guidance on the design of future studies to achieve the latter goal by exploring the current research on the effectiveness of perceptual remediation and offers suggestions for future research.

Constructional Abilities in Persons with Chronic Schizophrenia

“…In fact, occupational therapy treatment for individuals with perceptual deficits is predicated on a relationship between perceptual skill and functional performance. Therapists following the remedial, perceptual skills training approach described by Niestadt (1988) often use treatment tasks like construction of puzzles and parquetry blocks or performance of sensorimotor activities to provide clients with practice in deficit perceptual skills. It is assumed that improvement in perceptual skills will be accompanied by improvement in performance on functional activities such as dressing or driving a car, and several studies have supported this hypothesis (Carter et al, 1988;Diller & Weinberg, 1977;Leer, 1984;Sivak et al, 1981).…”

“…Occupational therapists have studied perceptual and perceptualmotor deficits in a variety of different clinical populations (Anderson & Choy, 1970;Eimon, Eimon, & Cermak, 1983;Endler & Eimon, 1978;Kaplan & Hier, 1982;Niestadt, 1988;Taylor, 1968). Performance on perceptual and perceptual-motor tasks is of particular importance since deficits in these areas have been shown to relate to impaired functional performance in job skills and in activities of daily living, and the degree of perceptual deficits has also been shown to relate to prognosis for rehabilitation in certain brain damaged patient populations (Bradley, 1982;Carter, Oliveira, Duponte, & Lynch, 1988;Kaplan & Hier, 1982;Pehoski, 1970;Sivak, Olson, Kerman, Won, & Henson, 1981;Warren, 1981).…”

Treatment Approaches for Attention Deficits in Schizophrenia

“…Another common assumption of the computer-based treatment and the remedial approach is that remedial training in specific skills will be generalized across all activities requiring attention to these skills (Brown, Harwood, Hays, Heckman, & Short, 1993;Neistadt, 1988Neistadt, , 1990Parente & Stapleton, 1997;Stuve et al, 1991;Toglia, 1991Toglia, , 1992. It is postulated that computer programs that demand clients to use their cognition will enhance attention capacity and that the improvement will transfer to the client's functional skills.…”

“…The approach assumes that specific cognitive and perceptual exercises can promote brain recovery and reorganization (Neistadt, 1988(Neistadt, , 1990Toglia, 1991Toglia, , 1992Toglia, , 1998 and that ". .…”

Cognitive rehabilitation: Models for intervention and research on cognition in occupational therapy

“…As such they may be less useful in clinical practice. Katz et al (1989), as well as Neistadt (1988), reviewed the initial research literature in occupational therapy on perceptual-cognitive components. In addition, our recent literature search suggest that it is difficult to draw general conclusions from the research results, but it is clear that cognitive disorders are a major contributing factor in functional performance deficits.…”