Improvement Resulting from Cognitive Training on Long Term Traumatic Brain Injury Patient

Abstract

The goal was to present a case study which illustrates what is typically seen clinically in providing cognitive rehabilitation in a mental health care setting; robust improvement in memory function followed by improvement in attention and executive reasoning function. Typically, pre and post neuropsychological evaluation reveals memory function improvement within the first three months while executive reasoning is seen within six to twelve months. Recent research documenting cognitive rehabilitation revealed mixed results which may be the result of not individualizing the program for each patient and/or not using neuropsychological evaluation for pre and post assessment. A literature review reveals that cognitively stimulating activities have been shown to independently slow late life decline, before death, offering protection against decline and possible helping to preserve cognitive function despite the presence of pathology. Cognitive therapy becomes a more efficacious method when there is more specificity of the training and improved functioning can be seen even if limited in time and duration [1-7].