Ecologically-oriented neurorehabilitation of memory: robustness of outcome across diagnosis and severity

The current study looked for a differential response to memory rehabilitation, testing the hypotheses that outcome would vary significantly as a function of patient diagnosis and severity of memory impairment.

Unblinded, open-label, pre/post-treatment comparison of memory rehabilitation in patients stratified by diagnosis (brain injury, n = 15; stroke, n = 12; other neurological condition, n = 6) and memory impairment severity.

Patients underwent an ecologically-oriented, strategy-based intervention for memory impairment and were evaluated pre- and post-treatment on seven simulations (four with alternate forms, randomized to the pre- or post-test) of everyday declarative or prospective memory tasks.

Patients at all levels of severity and in all three diagnostic groups showed equivalent, statistically significant improvement in memory performance. Neither practice effects from repeat test administration nor spontaneous recovery accounted for the improvement in memory performance.

The current study provided evidence of improved performance in everyday memory content domains with compensatory-based cognitive rehabilitation. Comparable improvement was seen across diagnostic groups and severity ranges. Additional case series and randomized clinical trials are needed to evaluate further the efficacy of compensation-based approaches to cognitive rehabilitation.