A meal preparation treatment protocol for adults with brain injury

Adults with acquired brain injury often demonstrate dysfunction in meal preparation due to deficits in component cognitive-perceptual skills. Although occupational therapy for these clients routinely includes meal preparation training, there are no protocols in the occupational therapy literature to help structure that activity to address clients' cognitive-perceptual deficits. This paper describes a meal preparation treatment protocol based on cognitive-perceptual information processing theory that has been pilot tested in a treatment outcome study with adult men with traumatic or anoxic acquired brain injury. In that study, the group of 23 subjects treated with this meal preparation protocol showed significant improvement in their meal preparation skill, as measured by the Rabideau Kitchen Evaluation-Revised (RKE-R), a test of meal preparation skill, and in their cognitive-perceptual skill, as measured by the WAIS-R Block Design Test. The treatment protocol includes descriptions of the structure, grading, and cuing methods for light meal preparation activities.