Cognitive Remediation and Schizophrenia

What is Cognitive Remediation?

Cognitive remediation is a term for a group of different therapeutic processes designed to improve cognitive health and patient independence. There are two major ways to perform cognitive remediation: directly work on the deficient function or create alternative cognitive strategies. Cognitive remediation is based on a combination of an array of playful activities and Therapeutic support to help improve a patient’s daily life.

How can Cognitive Remediation help those with Schizophrenia?

Today it is well known that there is a clear cognitive deficiency in patients with schizophrenia. Cognitive functions are deeply linked to daily-life activities affected by schizophrenia (mostly social behavior.) Further, cognitive impairment can result in a variety of symptoms, ranging from hallucinations, inappropriate behavior, and disorganized speech to depression and lack of emotion.
Cognitive remediation acts to reduce cognitive impairment, helping decrease symptoms and improve a patient’s daily life. Thanks to cognitive remediation, patients can set previously unreachable goals such as driving a car or going to college.

How does HAPPYneuron Pro help with Cognitive Remediation?

HAPPYneuron Pro includes activities for attention, memory, executive functions, processing speed, language and visuospatial perception. With schizophrenia, there is a clear decrease in attention, executive functions, processing speed and visuospatial performance. HAPPYneuron Pro matches activities with the cognitive function impairment experienced by patients with schizophrenia.
All activities included in HAPPYneuron Pro except pure language activities, which are less relevant, are suitable for schizophrenia-focused cognitive remediation. Level graduation is a real advantage for the progressive work needed in cognitive remediation.
It is worth noting, however, that cognitive remediation is efficient only if a therapist takes care of the patient. Indeed, a therapist is necessary to help the patient work on motivation, insight, metacognition, and emotional response.