Cognitive rehabilitation in acquired brain injury
Cognitive rehabilitation helps brain-injured or otherwise cognitively impaired individuals to restore normal functioning, or to compensate for cognitive deficits. This kind of rehabilitation is relate to the concept of “brain plasticity”. This phenomenon, well documented also in adults, refers to our brain’s ability to reorganized itself after a brain injury. In order to make it happens, there are specific exercise and methods for retraining neural pathways or training new neural pathways to regain or improve neurocognitive functioning that has been diminished by disease or trauma. The neuropsychological approach is about to creating an adequate environmental stimulation together with a comprehensive and individualised intervention that can fit a patient’s cognitive, emotional and motivational needs.
The neuropsychological rehab goals are:
- to improve the functional adaptation of the patient despite brain damage;
- to enhance residual functionality;
- to provide compensation tools to help regain individual autonomy and social reinsertion.
Treated neuropsychological disorders can be:
- cognitive disorders, such as neglect, aphasia, agnosia, apraxia, amnesia, dyscalculia, attention and learning gap;
- emotional/motivational disorders, such as inertia, apathy, lability, irritability, depression, anxiety;
- behavioural disorders, such as disinhibition, reduction of control, inability to critique, rigidity, disorganisation, difficulty in problem-solving and lack of awareness.
At our centres, it is possible to have specific rehabilitative sessions, either individual or in a group, that can stimulate cognitive and social skills.
