Designing and evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation program based on the information processing model on cognitive abilities for the patient with multiple sclerosis

Patients with multiple sclerosis generally have problems with their cognitive functions. In this study, researchers have identified the cognitive problems of patients based on the information processing model and then designed an appropriate cognitive rehabilitation program for the patients, and investigated the program's effectiveness on the improvement of patients' cognitive abilities.

This research was conducted in three stages through an advanced combined method (quantitative and qualitative). A: The stage of comparing the patients with healthy individuals by a causal-comparative method. B: designing the cognitive rehabilitation protocol according to the results of the first stage, the opinion of psychologists, and applying the Lawshe formula for cognitive rehabilitation protocol according to the first stage results. C: the intervention stage using the quasi-experimental method, in which 103 patients with multiple sclerosis were randomly selected and compared with 86 normal individuals in terms of cognitive functions. The five subtests of the MACIFIMS battery were used to evaluate the patient’s cognitive abilities. Then a rehabilitation protocol was developed, and finally, its effectiveness on 50 patients was evaluated. Both groups were evaluated in post-test and follow-up stages, and data were analyzed using the ANCOVA method with SPSS-22 software.

The results showed a significant difference between the mean scores of cognitive tests of patients and normal people, and the content validity of the cognitive protocol was equal to 0.75. Up to 1 was obtained. This significance was maintained in the scores of all averages except verbal long-term memory and visual long-term memory in one-month follow-up.

The results show that the designed protocol is effective and a valuable way to increase patients' cognitive abilities.