Neuro-rehabilitation: an effective approach to brain damage?

Many patients with brain damage are left with a range of neuropsychological deficits that impair the normal cognitive process we so often take for granted. It is generally recognised that these less obvious cognitive deficits (including memory, language, perceptual, attention and executive disorders) militate against full recovery often to a greater extent than more traditional medical deficits (e.g. paralysis, sensory loss, etc). Recognition of this, helped fuel the exponential growth in cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience over the past 30 years. In turn, this theoretical approach was used to guide and inform the development of cognitive therapies designed to remediate cognitive impairments and their functional consequences.

Like other evolving specialities, cognitive rehabilitation has over the last decade grown to become an established and influential therapeutic approach. There is now a considerable body of knowledge describing the principles and theoretical basis for analysing and directing treatments to selective cognitive deficits. Despite this, the clinical effectiveness and extent to which cognitive theory can inform therapeutic treatment has being questioned. It is timely, to evaluate and discuss the type and quality of evidence used in support of cognitive rehabilitation.

The conference will offer an opportunity to critically review and discuss the effectiveness of rehabilitation methods currently used to treat patients with cognitive impairments following acquired brain damage. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to confront a range of different views on study design and assessment, used to operationally define cognitive deficits.

We are fortunate to have as speakers some of the most influential clinicians and cognitive neuroscientists in the world today. We hope that by facilitating an evidence-based approach that permits a critical but realistic evaluation of the current literature, delegates will develop a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the cognitive rehabilitation approach.

The meeting will be of interest to a wide spectrum of clinical professions and academics who have an interest in or deal with the neuropsychological and neurological effects of brain damage. These include clinical psychologists, physicians, psychiatrists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, and social workers together with cognitive neuropsychologists, neuroscientists and psycholinguists.

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