Investigating the Effect of Cognitive Rehabilitation on Executive Functions in People with War-Related Injuries and Post-Traumatic Stress

The purpose of the present research was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on executive functions of war survivors with post-traumatic stress (PTSD).

It was semi-experimental research with pre-test, post-test, experiment, and control groups. The population of the research includes all injured people of Kermanshah City. 30 subjects were selected by purposeful sampling (15 per group). Barkleychr('39')s psychological executive functions disorder scale (BDEFS) and Wooders et al. Traumatic Stress Disorder List (1994) were used to collecting data.

The results showed that cognitive rehabilitation increased self-control/inhibition, self-motivation, and total score of executive performances in the experimental group compared with the control group. The same findings were observed in the follow-up tests, which indicated the persistent effect of cognitive rehabilitation on mentioned structures.

Cognitive rehabilitation can be used as an effective therapeutic approach to reduce psychological and physical dysfunctions as well as to improve executive performances in people with war-related injuries and PTSD.