Background: This paper presents a report involving a male patient who had experienced a subarachnoid haemorrhage. He presented with profound anterograde and retrograde amnesia, which caused him to be severely confused about his social contacts and his environment. Aim: To describe the complexity of amnesia and identity loss and examine how the combination of cognitive and music-evoked autobiographical training affected a person with anterograde and retrograde amnesia following subarachnoid haemorrhages (acquired brain injury [ABI]). Method: The 47-year-old male patient, who had worked as a DJ for some parts of his life previously had a good memory of musical events and facts about musical artists. This patient received an applied cognitive training programme (part I), which was based on spaced retrieval and errorless learning methods. The patient also received therapy involving the administration of music-evoked emotional responses (part II). The cognitive training programme consisted of 13 hourly sessions spread over four weeks. The music-based intervention included 5 hourly sessions, which took part place over two weeks. Results: Part I optimised the patient's name recall and local orientation. The resulting recovery of day-to-day memory and the awareness of the dependence on learning strategies led to the patient having a realisation of his severe loss of autobiographical memory. The patient became frustrated, angry and depressed and was at risk of disengaging from most areas of his neuro-rehabilitation programme. Part II enabled the patient to link the music or the artist with autobiographical events and to elicit emotional responses to such events. These were stringed into an autobiographical narrative with the result that the patient gained insight into the person he used to be and connected with past emotional experiences. The regained autobiographical memories were maintained beyond the training context. Conclusion: The patient's mood and motivation to continue his neuro-rehabilitation programme improved. This enabled him to make further progress regarding his functional independence.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a weekly, group-based occupational therapy (OT) intervention in an inpatient brain injury rehabilitation unit. The evaluation aims to assess whether this intervention incorporates evidence-based recommendations for executive functioning and positive social interactions. Design/methodology/approach -A literature review was carried out to identify those components deemed most effective for improvements of executive functions and group interventions. Systematic observations of the intervention were used to collect data matching the research requirements. The group intervention which was subject to the evaluation was a weekly OT activity called Life Skills Group. Participants were four brain injured patients, aged between 49 and 62 years and on average 4.5 month post injury. The group activities included the preparation, cooking and consuming of a meal. Findings -Some elements of evidence-based procedure for executive functioning training were observed, including repeated practice and errorless learning. The group provided opportunities for social interaction and peer support/modelling. The evaluation indicated opportunities for improving executive functions within the Life Skills Group setting, for instance, the consistent use of errorless practice, repetition and meta-strategy training. Social interventions were mainly initiated by the facilitation therapists and opportunities for social skills training and positive interactions between participants were overlooked. The evaluation concludes in a set of recommendations aimed at optimising the effectiveness of future groups. Originality/value -This paper gives an example how the use of research evidence can influence and optimise cognitive rehabilitation, social training and group interventions. Thus it is an attempt to highlight how occupational interventions and social interactions can be improved by a systematic evaluation. The evaluation provides a framework for how OT and social interventions can be planned, implemented and researched which will hopefully increase systematic outcomes studies in this field in the future.