Cognitive predictors of psychosocial functioning outcome in schizophrenia: A follow-up study of subjects participating in a rehabilitation program

Cognitive intervention in early psychosis — preserving abilities versus remediating deficits

“…These findings are of particular relevance due to the fact that attentional setshifting ability matures early [53], is less affected in early illness [12,38,41], and predicts work outcomes [86] and community functioning [87] in chronic schizophrenia. Furthermore, while the effects of cognitive remediation on visuospatial associative memory in early psychosis have not yet been investigated, one study has examined whether performance on the PAL task was able to predict change in psychosocial functioning following cognitive remediation [88]. In this study, better PAL performance at baseline predicted better community functioning at 15-month follow-up, which included improvements in daily living, autonomy and social competence.…”

Attention and executive function in people with schizophrenia: Relationship with social skills and quality of life

“…Selective attention refers to the ability to maintain focus on relevant stimuli or ideas in the presence of other distracting stimuli and has commonly been found to be impaired in schizophrenic patients on tasks such as the Stroop (e.g., [14,17,20,21]), Go/NoGo tasks (e.g., [22]) or in paradigms where patients have to selectively respond to auditory or visual stimuli (e.g., [23]). Sustained attention (or vigilance) describes the ability to maintain attention and has been found to be impaired in people with schizophrenia in a variety of paradigms, including the Continuous Performance Test (CPT [14,24,25]); the Digit Vigilance Test (DVT [17]), and the Rapid Visual Information Processing Test (RVP [18,26]). Divided attention refers to the ability to attend simultaneously to more than one task or to several elements within a task.…”

Receptor screening technologies in the evaluation of Amazonian ethnomedicines with potential applications to cognitive deficits

“…Negative symptoms may persist well beyond the resolution of the overtly psychotic symptoms (Kirkpatrick et al, 2006). Recovery of cognitive functions, more than overt symptomatology, has been proposed to be a better predictor of eventual successful psychosocial re-adaptation (Velligan et al, 1997;Prouteau et al, 2005). Accordingly, more recent treatment approaches to schizophrenia have focused on behavioral and pharmacological interventions targeted toward the resolution of neurocognitive deficits (Green et al, 2005).…”