Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy Research Articles

The Evidentiary Basis for Supported Employment Practice for Workers with Schizophrenia: A Thematic Analysis

The authors have conducted a thematic review of the literature on the evidence of, and enquiry into, individualized placement and support (IPS) efficacy as an intervention for people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. Eight studies were identified that met all inclusion criteria. Explicit themes in the research included (a) investigation of the impact of schizophrenia sequelae on IPS efficacy and the differential impact of neurocognitive enhancement therapy in minimizing psychiatric symptoms and improving IPS outcomes and (b) IPS as an alternative to treatment-as-usual in different age demographics (older and younger clients). Implicit themes coalesced around a general theme of dealing with change, in practice and research, that implementing IPS implies. Each theme represents a challenge or confound to the research corpus and included (a) vaguely defined rationale for the issue of return on investment, (b) practical burden of overstressed and unprepared service structures, (c) diffuse outcom...

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy with vocational services: Work outcomes at two-year follow-up

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy (NET) is a remediation program for the persistent and function-limiting cognitive impairments of schizophrenia. In a previous study in veterans, NET improved work therapy outcomes as well as executive function and working memory. The present study aimed to determine whether NET could enhance functional outcomes among schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients in a community mental health center receiving community-based vocational services. Method: Patients ( N = 72) participated in a hybrid transitional and supported employment program (VOC) and were randomized to either NET + VOC or VOC only. NET + VOC included computer-based cognitive training, work feedback and a social information information-processing group. VOC only also included two weekly support groups. Active intervention was 12 months with 12 month follow-up. Follow-up rate was 100%. Results: NET + VOC patients worked significantly more hours during the 12 month follow-up period, reached a significantly higher cumulative rate of competitive employment by the sixth quarter, and maintained significantly higher rates of employment. Conclusion: NET training improved vocational outcomes, suggesting the value of combining cognitive remediation with other rehabilitation methods to enhance functional outcomes.

Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy and Competitive Employment in Schizophrenia: Effects on Clients with Poor Community Functioning

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy (NET) has been shown to improve executive function and working memory and to improve work therapy outcomes. The current study applied NET to a vocational program (VOC) in the community that included transitional funds with supported employment. NET + VOC achieved higher rates of competitive employment and more total hours worked during the 12-month follow-up period, This report examines the relationship between community function at intake and vocational outcomes by condition. Method: 72 outpatients with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were evaluated on Heinrich's Quality of Life Scale and randomized to NET + VOC or to VOC only. Active intervention was 12 months with 12-month follow-up. Follow-up rate was 100% for the intent-to-treat sample. Results: When the sample was divided into higher and lower community functioning, logistic regression found significant effects for level of community function and for condition. Most of the difference between ...

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

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 twelve-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. Sixty-two 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.

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy with work therapy in schizophrenia: 6-month follow-up of neuropsychological performance

Cognitive deficits are a major determinant of social and occupational dysfunction in schizophrenia, and new treatments are needed that address these impairments. The current study determined whether neurocognitive enhancement therapy (NET) in combination with work therapy (WT) would show improvement in performance on neuropsychological tests that endured 6 months after completion of training. A total of 145 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were randomly assigned to NET + WT or WT alone. NET included computer-based training on attention, memory, and executive function tasks. WT included paid work activity in job placements at the medical center. Neuropsychological assessment was performed at baseline, at the end of the 6-month active intervention, and 12 months after training began. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance revealed greater neuropsychological improvements on working memory (p < 0.05) and executive function (p < 0.05) for the NET + WT group over the 12 months. Both groups showed sustained improvements on verbal and nonverbal memory.

Impact of intellectual status on response to cognitive task training in patients with schizophrenia

Cognitive remediation is a promising rehabilitation procedure for people with schizophrenia, but very little is known about who can benefit. In the current analyses, we examined the role of pre-morbid and morbid intellectual function in predicting response to cognitive remediation in a sample of 152 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. They were participants in a trial of work therapy and cognitive remediation and had been randomized to receive either Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy with Work Therapy (NET + WT) or Work Therapy only (WT only). For the current analyses, patients were divided into three intellectual subgroups based on their pattern of premorbid and morbid deficits (preserved intelligence, compromised intelligence, and deteriorated intelligence), and their cognitive remediation outcomes were examined. Cognitive remediation response was measured in two ways: normalization of performance on a computerized training task, and pre-post neuropsychological test performance. Subjects in NET + WT showed greater improvement in cognition than those in WT only, but response differed by intellectual group. For patients in the compromised group, those in NET + WT showed a significantly higher proportion of task normalization than those in the WT only condition, but no such differences were found with the preserved and deteriorated intellectual groups. For patients in the preserved and deteriorated intellectual groups, those in the NET + WT condition showed significantly greater improvement in the analysis of pre-post neuropsychological test performance, but this difference was not found in the compromised intellectual group. These findings suggest that the compromised intellectual group, which had the lowest frequency of normal performers at intake, benefited from NET by achieving dramatic increases in normalization, but that they had difficulty in generalizing these gains to untrained tasks. Those in the preserved and deteriorated intellectual groups were more successful in generalizing their training.

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy with work therapy: Productivity outcomes at 6- and 12-month follow-ups

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy (NET), which involves computerized cognitive training and other methods, has been shown to improve working memory and executive function in schizophrenia. In the present study, 145 outpatients with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder recruited from a Department of Veterans Affairs mental hygiene clinic and from a community mental health center were ran domized to 6 months of paid work therapy (WT) or to NET+WT. Mixed random effects analyses revealed significant increase in hours worked and money earned over time for both conditions (p < 0.0001). NET+WT worked more hours than WT (p < 0.03), with differences emerging after rehabilitation. Responders to NET+WT worked the most during follow-up and tended to have more competitive-wage employment. Results indicate that work outcomes were enhanced by NET training. Effects were greatest for NET responders. Findings support the efficacy of cognitive training when it is integrated into broader rehabilitation programs.

Effects of neurocognitive enhancement therapy in schizophrenia: Normalisation of memory performance

Introduction. A preponderance of research indicates that cognitive function in schizophrenia can be improved through cognitive remediation. However, few studies have attempted to characterise the extent of improvement relative to nonpsychiatric controls. Method. Cognitive performance on reaction time, digit recall, and word recall of 58 schizophrenia patients at baseline and after 6 months of cognitive remediation was compared to the performance on these tasks of 39 community controls. Schizophrenia patients participated in Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy (NET) and received hierarchical training on the memory tasks, but not on the reaction time task, which was only administered at intake and follow‐up. Results. The schizophrenia sample showed significantly poorer performances than the community control sample on all three tasks at baseline. NET led to significant improvements in performance on trained memory tasks, but not the untrained reaction time task. There was a significant increase in the proportion of schizophrenia patients who achieved normal range performance on the memory tasks. Conclusions. 52% of schizophrenia patients who were impaired on at least one of the memory tasks normalised their performance on at least one of those tasks as a result of cognitive training. Results suggest that clinically meaningful improvement may be possible using cognitive remediation.

Neurocognitive enhancement therapy in schizophrenia: Durability of effects on neuropsychological test performance six months after training

Background: The atypical antipsychotic olanzapine has been approved for the treatment of schizophrenia in Europe since 1996 but has been used primarily as a second-line treatment to the less expensive typical agents. However, similar to other atypical antipsychotic drugs, olanzapine has a lower risk of inducing extrapyramidal symptoms, tardive dyskinesia, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, and sexual dysfunction compared with the typical antipsychotic drugs.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with schizophrenia who have a poor response to their present antipsychotic therapy would show improvement when switched to olanzapine.Methods: This 13-week, multicenter, open-label, nonrandomized trial was conducted at 5 centers in Lithuania. Patients were started on oral olanzapine 10-mg tablets once daily, which could be adjusted by 5 mg/d in the dosing range of 5 to 20 mg/d. The primary efficacy measure was the total score on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), which was extracted from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Efficacy response rate was defined a priori as the percentage of patients achieving ≥40% improvement in the BPRS total score. Secondary assessments included the PANSS total and BPRS and PANSS subscales and scores on the Clinical Global Impression-Severity of Illness (CGI-S), the CGI-Global Improvement (CGI-I), and the Patient Global Impression-Improvement (PGI-I) tests. Tolerability was primarily measured by assessing the incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events (AEs) according to the Udvalg fuer Kliniske Undersogelser (UKU) Side Effect Rating Scale and laboratory analyses.Results: Twenty-four patients (13 men [54.2%]; mean [SD] age, 32.4 [8.1] years) entered the study. Twenty-three (95.8%) of the 24 patients completed the study. The mean (SD) daily dosage of olanzapine was 11.40 (2.18) mg/d. The total mean (SD) BPRS score improved significantly from 37.8 (7.9) to 19.5 (13.7) (P < 0.001). The response rate was 58.3% (14/24 patients). The mean positive and negative BPRS scores and the mean total and subscale PANSS scores all improved significantly from baseline (P < 0.001). The mean (SD) CGI-S score improved significantly from 4.8 (0.8) at baseline to 3.5 (1.1) at end point (P < 0.001). Twenty-two patients (91.7%) showed improvement on the CGM scale. Similar improvement was found on the PGM scale. Treatment-emergent AEs occurred in 7 patients (29.2%). Improvement was found on 31 of the 48 UKU scale items; no change was shown on 15 items; and slight worsening was shown on 2 items. No clinical abnormalities were detected during the study.Conclusion: In this study of Lithuanian patients with schizophrenia, significant improvement was shown in all efficacy measures. In addition, olanzapine was well tolerated in these patients.