Cognitive Remediation Therapy for People With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder: A Rapid Qualitative Review

This rapid qualitative review analyzed 8 studies describing the perspectives of people living with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) who use cognitive remediation therapy (CRT), and their caregivers and clinicians. People living with SSD reported notable improvements in their attention, memory, and problem solving; improvement in their lives when they applied the cognitive strategies acquired from CRT into daily life activities; improvement in communication skills, social engagement, motivation, independence; and a reduction in psychotic symptoms. This review found a common preference among people living with SSD and caregivers to provide personalized delivery and treatment of CRT. People living with SSD cited several ways to introduce personalized CRT: cognitive trainer or clinician’s support and guidance; the content, design, and implementation of CRT; using technology; and group environment and interacting with peers. The constant presence of a polite, friendly, empathetic, and encouraging clinician contributed to beneficial views of CRT. People living with SSD enjoyed the structure of sessions and cognitive tasks, specifically working on tasks at their own pace with gradual increases in difficulty that gave them a sense of accomplishment and mastery. They also enjoyed using technology and playing games to complete tasks; however, some found accessing a computer and a high-quality internet connection difficult. While people living with SSD reported several social benefits to group-based CRT, others found group-based CRT to be unconducive for their learning, especially when the group environment was not supportive or encouraging. Caregivers and clinicians recognized the importance of matching the type of cognitive exercises and structure of sessions to the cognitive needs of people living with SSD.

Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Anorexia Nervosa Comorbidity: Common Features and Treatment Possibilities With Cognitive Remediation Therapy and Oxytocin

Autistic traits or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be found in 4% to 52% of anorexic patients, which makes the treatment of these patients very challenging. In this review, possible ways to treat ASD and anorexia nervosa (AN) comorbidity in children and adolescents are summarized. Over recent years, the focus has shifted from searching for the evidence of connections between these two disorders, which have started with Gillberg's study in 1983, to searching for more effective and holistic treatment of this comorbidity. The latter is known to contribute to more severe courses and worse prognosis, which is probably related to the obstacles in both diagnosing and treating. Since AN usually starts in early adolescence and high-functioning ASD children seem to begin struggling with increased pressure in adolescence, while various comorbidities can occur, it is important to improve the treatment of this comorbidity in young patients and to tailor it specifically in terms of diagnosing. In this paper, a literature review is conducted on common features and promising treatment possibilities. We describe cognitive remediation therapy and the promising pharmacotherapeutic candidate oxytocin with a special focus on adolescents.

A Literatur Review of Common Outcome in Cognitive Remediation for Schizophrenia

Background: People with schizophrenia experience a change especially in the cognitive aspect, and therefore require immediate intervention to improve their cognitive and other aspects. Cognitive remediation is a program that has been developed with promising results. Objective: to review the literature on outcomes in general from the provision of cognitive remediation in people with schizophrenia.Method: Searching relevant literature on relevant databases, i.e., Pubmed, Ebsco, Cochrane, JSTOR, and the Google Scholar search engine, using keywords: cognitive remediation, schizophrenia, therapy.Result: Taken from reviewing 21 relevant articles. Cognitive remediation affects cognitive function, functional ability and problem-solving, social skill and cognition, clinical symptoms, neural outcome, quality of life, self-esteem, and cost-utility analysis.Conclusions: Common outcomes in CRT (Cognitive Remediation Therapy) administration in people with schizophrenia have been identified. Improvement of cognitive function was defined to be the most commonly measured outcome in the study.