The effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on short - term memory deficits of chronic schizophrenic patients

schizophrenia is common in all ages. It affects cognitive abilities, and assessment and treatment is necessary. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on short-term memory deficits in chronic schizophrenic patients.

this semi-experimental research used a pre-test and post-test with control a group. The study population included all the patients with chronic schizophrenic disorders in the center for chronic psychiatric patients in the city of Arak, totalling 30 patients. They were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups (each group was 15). The experimental group received 15 rehabilitation sessions.

results showed cognitive rehabilitation increased the overall scores of auditory and visual memory, and the vocabulary span of the participants in the experimental group, but cognitive rehabilitation had no effect on the digit span with chronic schizophrenia.

The result of the present study showed that cognitive rehabilitation is effective in improving auditory, visual and vocabulary short term memory. Therefore, it is recommended that psychological intervention should be combined with pharmacological treatment.