Effectiveness of a two-phase cognitive rehabilitation intervention for severely impaired schizophrenia patients.

Background: Several small-N, uncontrolled reports have demonstrated that the behavioral technique of attention shaping has significantly increased attention span among severely ill schizophrenia patients.

Method: In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of using an individually administered intervention for improving sustained attention, Attention Process Training (APT), followed by an attention-shaping procedure within the context of an ongoing skills training group. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either the APT and attention-shaping sequence (n = 18) or equivalent hours of treatment in the same intensive behavioral rehabilitation program (n = 13).

[Techniques for improving attentiveness and treatment engagement among "treatment refractory" schizophrenia patients with severe cognitive impairment].

While many effective group-based psychiatric rehabilitation interventions now exist, many severely disabled patients are unable to benefit from them due to a reduced ability to pay attention in group sessions. Moreover, inattentiveness can be due to one or more of multiple factors, including a sustained attention deficit, poor motivation, sedating side effects of medication, and the interfering effects of hallucinations and disturbing thoughts. Existing cognitive rehabilitation interventions for schizophrenia typically do not address these factors, instead targeting higher level functions such as memory, learning, problem-solving, and executive functioning.