Cognitive remediation may benefit youth with psychosis

By Mark Cowen, Senior medwireNews Reporter

Results from a Swiss study suggest that computer-assisted cognitive remediation (CACR) may help improve certain aspects of cognition in adolescent patients with or at risk for psychosis.

Sébastien Urben (University Service of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Lausanne) and team found that adolescent patients with or at risk for psychosis showed significant improvements in inhibition ability and reasoning 6 months after completing an 8-week CACR program.

In contrast, no such improvements were seen in adolescent patients with or at risk for psychosis who were assigned to a computer game control group.

"Given the preliminary nature of these encouraging results, future research on larger samples is needed to confirm the reported improvements," say the researchers.

The team studied 32 adolescents with or at high risk for psychosis who were assigned to the CACR program (n=18) or a control group (n=14). Patients in the CACR program participated in two 45-minute sessions per week designed to improve attention, concentration, memory, visuospatial, visuomotor, and conceptualization abilities.

In total, 12 patients assigned to CACR and 10 controls were assessed at follow up.

Over the study period, patients in the CACR group showed significant improvements in median scores on the Color Stroop task, which assesses inhibition ability, from 3.50 at baseline to 5.00 at follow up.

Patients in CACR group also showed significant improvements in median scores on a block design task, which assesses reasoning, from 8.00 at baseline to 8.50 at follow up.

No such improvements were observed in controls, and neither group showed significant improvements in processing speed, working memory, episodic memory, verbal fluency, or planning abilities.

The researchers note that although both groups showed improvement in psychosis symptoms over the study period, this was not related to improvements in cognitive abilities.

"In conclusion, this trial reported long-term improvements in high-order abilities specifically related to an 8-week CACR program," the researchers write in Acta Neuropsychiatrica.

"Thus, the CACR seems to be a useful tool for the improvement of cognitive abilities [in adolescents with or at risk for psychosis]," they add.

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