2 research outputs found
Does substance use disorder affect clinical expression in first-hospitalization patients with schizophrenia? Analysis of a prospective cohort
DO NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL COGNITION ABILITIES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA CHANGE AFTER INTENSIVE COGNITIVE TRAINING? A PILOT STUDY
Objective: Schizophrenia is characterized by significant cognitive deficits on attention, memory, executive
function, language and/or sensory motor skills. In addition, patients’ profile is frequently characterized by marked
deficits in the domain of social cognition. Cognitive rehabilitation aims has recently become an essential component
of the rehabilitation process in schizophrenia. However, to date is not clear whether cognitive rehabilitation impacts
positively only on the cognitive deficits specifically trained, or whether the positive effects of rehabilitation training
may extend also to other domains such as social cognition abilities. Thus, in the present pilot study, we wanted to see
whether an intensive cognitive training, in addition to improving neuropsychological abilities, would also have had an
impact on social cognition skills.
Method: Ten patients affected by schizophrenia were randomly assigned to two groups: a treatment group (n =
5) undergoing an intensive computerized cognitive training, and a control group (n = 5) undergoing an unstructured
computerized control intervention. A detailed neuropsychological, clinical, functional and social cognition assessment
was performed before and after the intervention for all the patients.
Results: A significant longitudinal effect in the treatment group was found for the BACS verbal memory (p =
0.016), and for the comic strip task – non-social (p = 0.032). A trend towards a significant effect was found for the FAB
(p = 0.056). Single-case analysis via modified t-test was conducted too.
Conclusions: Our preliminary results showed a significant improvement in the cognitive domain after a structured
cognitive training. In addition, an improvement in some social cognition abilities was observed too, even if the impact
of the cognitive intervention on these abilities was less evident. Implications for further research were discussed