Effectiveness of a two-phase cognitive rehabilitation intervention for severely impaired schizophrenia patients

Background. Several small-N, uncontrolled reports have demonstrated that the behavioral technique of attention shaping has significantly increased attention span among severely ill schizophrenia patients. Method. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of using an individually administered int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological medicine 2005-06, Vol.35 (6), p.829-837
Main Authors: SILVERSTEIN, STEVEN M., HATASHITA-WONG, MICHI, SOLAK, BETH ANNE, UHLHAAS, PETER, LANDA, YULIA, WILKNISS, SANDRA M., GOICOCHEA, CLAUDIA, CARPINIELLO, KELLY, SCHENKEL, LINDSAY S., SAVITZ, ADAM, SMITH, THOMAS E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Attention
Behavior therapy. Cognitive therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition Disorders - diagnosis
Cognition Disorders - etiology
Cognition Disorders - rehabilitation
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive impairment
Effectiveness studies
Female
Humans
Interventions
Male
Medical sciences
Neuropsychological Tests
Neuropsychology - methods
Patients
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychoses
Rehabilitation
Reinforcement (Psychology)
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - complications
Severe
Severity of Illness Index
Treatments
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Summary:Background. Several small-N, uncontrolled reports have demonstrated that the behavioral technique of attention shaping has significantly increased attention span among severely ill schizophrenia patients. Method. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of using an individually administered intervention for improving sustained attention, Attention Process Training (APT), followed by an attention-shaping procedure within the context of an ongoing skills training group. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either the APT and attention-shaping sequence (n=18) or equivalent hours of treatment in the same intensive behavioral rehabilitation program (n=13). Results. Results indicated dramatic improvements in attentiveness in the cognitive rehabilitation condition compared with the control condition, which demonstrated essentially no change in attentiveness over the 12 weeks of treatment. The attention-shaping intervention appeared to account for the majority of the effect. In contrast to the observational data, performance on neuropsychological tests was unaffected by the cognitive interventions. Conclusions. This two-phase intervention demonstrated effectiveness in promoting attentive behavior among chronic schizophrenia patients with severe attentional impairment.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291704003356