The Effectiveness of Cognitive Rehabilitation on the Improvement of Depression Symptoms and Brain Wave Pattern in Patients with Depression Disorder

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on the improvement of depression syndrome and brain wave pattern in patients with major depressive disorder.

The present study was semi-experimental. The statistical population of the study was all depressed patients referring to psychiatric centers of Tabriz in 2018. A total of 30 depressed patients were selected after the diagnosis of a psychiatrist and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control. Then, the experimental group received cognitive rehabilitation for 12 sessions of 60 minutes, as well as related training. Finally, the data were analyzed using Neuroguid software and SPSS version 23.

The results of this study showed that in the experimental group, cognitive rehabilitation reduced depression together with brain alpha in the F3 region, and increased brain beta in the F4 region p<0/01. The experimental group pre-test and post-test scores decreased for depression from 30/86 to 22/20 and alpha F3 from 11.33 to 8.60; however, they increased for beta F4 from 20/23 to 28/80.

Based on the findings of this study, cognitive rehabilitation can be used as an effective treatment to reduce depression.