Cognitive remediation therapies (cognitive training)
Cognitive remediation therapies are scientific brain training that have been designed to stimulate and reinforce cognitive functioning when it is impaired. Cognitive remediation therapies play on the brain plasticity principle which means that the more a brain function is stimulated, the stronger it becomes.
Cognitive remediation therapies have boomed in recent decades with the development of Cognitive Neurosciences, particularly to address the specific cognitive deficits that occur in schizophrenia. Cognitive remediation therapies are already widely used in Europe, the USA and many other parts of the world, but still remain little known here in Australia.
To this date, several publications have confirmed the efficacy of cognitive remediation therapies to improve cognitive functioning in:
- Schizophrenia: McGurk et al. 2005; McGurk et al. 2007;
- Bipolar disorders: Depp et al. 2012; Dickstein et al. 2015; Veeh et al. 2017;
- ADHD children: Cogmed;
- Brain injury: Hallock et al. 2016;
- Multiple Sclerosis: Bonavita et al. 2015; Perez et al. 2017;
- Early stage of dementia: Kanaan et al. 2014; Cavallo et al. 2016; Sharma et al. 2016;