The Effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on executive functions in patients with stroke

According to the World Health Organization, stroke is a series of sudden clinical symptoms. And it has no obvious cause other than vascular origin. Defective working memory is one of the most commonly occurring phenomena after brain damage. Attention and executive function (problem solving) are closely related to working memory. Cognitive Rehabilitation is a cognitive intervention program designed to rehabilitate cognitive deficiencies. The present study examined the effect of cognitive rehabilitation on spatial / verbal working memory, selective and divided attention, and problem solving in adults with stroke. 20 patients were equally divided into experimental and control groups. Cognitive rehabilitation computer program was performed 5 weeks and 5 days a week, and for 30-40 minutes. The research variables were measured by Wechsler's working memory test, N-back spatial working memory test, selective and divided attention program, Wisconsin sorting card test before and after the rehabilitation program. Significant improvement was observed in auditory and visual working memory and selective attention. This recovery may be due to changes in neural organization in response to injury. The cognitive rehabilitation program makes to re-learn mental acts and is based on brain flexibility that improves working memory and selective attention of patients. It seems that the lack of improvement observed in divided attention and problem solving is due to the lack of coordination and parallel processing in different regions of the brain due to infarct tissues.