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Abstract
Patients with schizophrenia often receive little by way of non-pharmacological interventions. Despite this, promising outcomes in programmes targeting cognitive deficits have been reported, suggesting that this is an area worthy of further investigation. The aim of the study was to implement and evaluate a brief computerised cognitive remediation programme designed to improve memory and attention in a male Chinese sample with chronic schizophrenia. Pre-testing was completed on a number of clinical and cognitive measures for intervention (n = 14) and treatment as usual (n = 17) participants. The intervention group then completed six weeks ( x no. of sessions = 12.78) of the computer-based cognitive remediation programme. Post-test measures for both groups were then collected again. Following the six week intervention, we found, contrary to our expectations, the intervention group improved on several of the clinical variables. The intervention group also performed better than the control group on the post-test measure of attention, but not verbal memory. These findings suggest that it is feasible to improve some aspects of cognitive abilities with a simple computerised training programme for people with serious mental illness.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by funds awarded to Dr Linda Byrne from the Adult Mental Health Strategic Research Centre and the School of Psychology at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and Dr Daihui Peng from the Shanghai City Health Bureau Fund 2010086. The research team would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Anthony Perks in the development of the functional specification and to our software developers Jianhui Xu and Qiang Yin. We would also like to thank Annabelle Chow for her work in administering the training programme, and the participants and their families for their time.