Cognitive Stimulation in the Home Environment

Abstract

The rehabilitation of brain impaired individuals, particularly traumatically brain injured persons, has been expanding in terms of breadth and duration in the past several years. One example of this expansion is the growing emphasis on cognitive retraining for such individuals. The last 15 years have seen a tremendous investment of effort and monies in developing cognitive retraining programs, sometimes utilizing state-of-the-art technology, such as personal computers (Gianutsos, Glosser, Elbaum, & Vromen, 1983; Lynch, 1982; Ben-Yishay & Diller, 1983; Adamovitch, Henderson, & Auerbach, 1985). Numerous reports, most often case studies, have been published addressing the application of cognitive retraining programs (Rao & Bieliauskas, 1983; Crosson & Buenning, 1984; Gianutsos, 1981; Crovitz, 1979; Malec & Questad, 1983; Fowler, Hart, & Sheehan, 1972; Glasgow, Zeiss, Barbera & Lewirisohn, 1977; Jaffe & Katz, 1975). Although firm conclusions are not warranted based on case studies, the growing number of case reports and findings from group studies (Gasparinni & Satz, 1979; Jones, 1974; Weinberg, Piasetsky, Diller, & Gordon, 1982; Prigatano, Fordyce, Zeiner, Roueche, Pepping, & Wood, 1984) suggest that cognitive retraining programs are effective in specific areas. The neglect syndrome (Heilman, Watson, & Valenstein, 1985), commonly manifested as hemispatial neglect, appears to be amenable to remediation using structured behavioral techniques (Webster, Jones, Blanton, Gross, Beissel, & Wofford, 1984; Weinberg, Diller, Gordon, Gerstman, Lieberman, Lakin, Hodges, & Ezrachi, 1977). In fact, Gordon and his colleagues (Gordon, Hibbard, Egelko, Diller, Shaver, Lieberman, & Ragnarsson, 1985) have formulated a comprehensive retraining program for disorders related to right hemisphere dysfunction with successful results in the rehabilitation setting.