Effects of Occupational Therapy Interventions and Brain Stimulation on Visuospatial ‎Memory in Adult Male Patients with Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is one of the most debilitating psychological disorders and one of the most common psychoses. The level of performance of these patients can be affected by cognitive disorders and especially visual-spatial memory. Cognitive rehabilitation can help improve cognitive functions. It also seems that electrical brain stimulation via transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) can increase the working memory of these patients. In this study, we intend to investigate the effect of occupational therapy with TDCS on visual-spatial memory function and visual learning in this group of patients.

The present study is an interventional study in the form of a clinical trial with a double blind, pretest-posttest design. 24 people were selected by convenient non probability sampling method and randomly assigned into the control/intervention group. The intervention was conducted in 12 sessions of 20 minutes. The anode electrode was placed on the left F3 or left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) region and the cathode electrode was placed in the supraorbital region on the opposite side. All participants performed 3 cognitive tasks related to visual-spatial memory in each session and also received psychosocial occupational therapy services for 30 minutes. Participants' visual-spatial memory and learning were assessed by Spatial Recognition Memory (SRM) and Paired Associate Learning (PAL).

The results of the study showed that the application of electrical brain stimulation along with cognitive tasks and occupational therapy services can significantly increase (p<0.05) visual-spatial memory as well as visual learning. The results of SRM (P=0.004) test after the intervention were significantly different between the two groups. The results of PAL test (p=0.01) were also significant after the intervention.

The present study has found that if electrical stimulation is accompanied by cognitive tasks and occupational therapy, the function of visual-spatial memory and visual learning can be strengthened in a short time.