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REVIEW ARTICLE
Conclusions: There is substantial evidence to support cognitive-linguistic therapies for people with language deficits
after left hemisphere stroke. New evidence supports training
for apraxia after left hemisphere stroke. The evidence supports
visuospatial rehabilitation for deficits associated with visual
neglect after right hemisphere stroke. There is substantial evidence to support cognitive rehabilitation for people with TBI,
including strategy training for mild memory impairment, strategy training for postacute attention deficits, and interventions
for functional communication deficits. The overall analysis of
47 treatment comparisons, based on class I studies included in
the current and previous review, reveals a differential benefit in
favor of cognitive rehabilitation in 37 of 47 (78.7%) comparisons, with no comparison demonstrating a benefit in favor of
the alternative treatment condition. Future research should
move beyond the simple question of whether cognitive rehabilitation is effective, and examine the therapy factors and
patient characteristics that optimize the clinical outcomes of
cognitive rehabilitation.
Key Words: Brain injuries; Cognition disorders; Practice
guidelines; Rehabilitation; Stroke.
2005 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and
Rehabilitation
HE BRAIN INJURY interdisciplinary Special Interest
Group (BI-ISIG) of the American Congress of RehabilitaT
tion Medicine (ACRM) previously conducted an evidencebased review of the literature through 1997 about cognitive
rehabilitation for people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or
stroke.1 That review led the BI-ISIG to make several specific
recommendations concerning the clinical practice of cognitive
rehabilitation and its effectiveness in TBI and stroke patients.
Since publication of our initial findings, several additional
systematic reviews of cognitive rehabilitation have been published. A task force under the auspices of the European Federation of Neurological Societies2 used similar methods and
reviewed many of the same studies referenced in our initial
report. That task force concluded that there is substantial evidence to support attention training in the postacute phase after
TBI (but not during the period of acute recovery) and compensatory memory training for subjects with mild memory impairments. Evidence of the effectiveness of pragmatic conversational therapy after TBI was based on a limited number of
studies with small samples, and was in need of confirmation.
Several methods of rehabilitation for spatial neglect were found
to be effective, as was the treatment of apraxia with compensatory strategies. As part of a broader effort by the Academy of
Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences to develop
practice guidelines for treating cognitive-communication disorders after TBI, Sohlberg et al3 examined the evidence for the
effectiveness of direct attention training after TBI. They conArch Phys Med Rehabil Vol 86, August 2005
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cluded that there was evidence of improvement in attentionbased skills with direct training, although the interpretation of
studies was limited by factors such as subject heterogeneity and
the lack of replications. Two Cochrane reviews have examined
cognitive rehabilitation for attention deficits4 or memory deficits5 after stroke, but only class I studies were included. Lincoln et al4 concluded there was some evidence that training
improves alertness and sustained attention but insufficient evidence of improved functional independence after stroke. Majid et al5 identified a single study that met their criteria for
inclusion and found insufficient evidence to support or refute
the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation for memory problems after stroke.
Several systematic reviews6-8 found evidence that cognitive
rehabilitation, including visual scanning training, improves
spatial neglect after right hemisphere stroke, but also found that
there is limited or insufficient evidence for the duration of
treatment effects or relevance to everyday functioning.6,8 Systematic reviews of treatment for aphasia have reached conflicting conclusions. Robey9 conducted a meta-analytic review of
55 studies of clinical outcomes after aphasia rehabilitation.
These were generally observational studies, rather than randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Outcomes for treated subjects were superior to outcomes for untreated subjects in all
stages of recovery, particularly when treatment was begun in
the acute stage of recovery, and the extent of treatment effects
was positively associated with the amount of treatment. There
were too few studies to permit an examination of the differential effects of treatments for different types of aphasia. Cappa
et al2 found some evidence for the effectiveness of aphasia
therapy, again based largely on class II and III studies. In
contrast, a Cochrane review10 of aphasia rehabilitation identified only 12 RCTs suitable for the authors review, none of
which were considered of adequate methodologic quality to
warrant complete description and analysis. The main conclusion reached in that review was that aphasia therapy after
stroke has not been shown to be clearly effective or ineffective
within an RCT.
These systematic reviews have generally found some evidence to support the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation
after TBI or stroke, but have also recognized the need for better
specification of treatment effects and increased methodologic
rigor, and have sometimes limited their conclusions on these
grounds. We recognize that clinical guideline development is
an ongoing process that should include an updated review of
the literature within 5 years of the initial recommendations.
The BI-ISIG recently completed an updated evidence-based
review and made recommendations that incorporate the literature published from 1998 through 2002. This article summarizes those findings and recommendations. In this article, we
concentrate on describing class I studies. Class II and III
studies are discussed when they provide unique or contradictory information. A more complete discussion of these studies
is in the full report of the BI-ISIG committee (online at http://
www.acrm.org).
METHODS
We followed prior methodology for identifying relevant
literature, reviewing, and classifying, and developing recommendations. These methods are described in more detail in our
initial publication.1 For the current review, we searched
PubMed and Infotrieve for articles published between 1998 and
2002, using the terms attention, awareness, cognitive, communication, executive, language, memory, perception, problem
solving, and reasoning combined with each of the terms rehabilitation, remediation, and training. We elected to include
Arch Phys Med Rehabil Vol 86, August 2005
RCTs published before 1998 that were not included in our first
review, but not other studies. Two such articles were identified
and included in this review. This resulted in the identification
of 312 articles. The abstracts or complete articles were reviewed to eliminate articles according to the following exclusion criteria: (1) articles not addressing intervention, (2) theoretical articles or descriptions of treatment approaches, (3)
review articles, (4) articles without adequate specification of
interventions, (5) articles that did not include participants primarily with a diagnosis of TBI or stroke, (6) studies of pediatric subjects, (7) single-case reports without empirical data,
(8) nonpeer-reviewed articles and book chapters, (9) articles
describing pharmacologic interventions, and (10) articles not
written in English. One hundred eighteen articles were included this screening process. Thirty-one studies were excluded after further detailed review (14 studies without data, 6
articles representing duplicate publications or follow-up studies, 5 articles that were nontreatment studies or experimental
manipulations, 4 reviews, and 2 single-case studies of subjects
with diagnoses other than TBI or stroke). Studies providing
follow-up to previously reviewed treatment studies were not
fully evaluated or classified as new treatment studies, but
findings from these studies were reviewed and are discussed
here when appropriate.
Eighty-seven studies were fully reviewed and evaluated,
with the level of evidence determined based on criteria used in
our prior review.1 Well-designed, prospective RCTs were considered class I evidence; studies using a prospective design
with quasirandomized assignment to treatment conditions
were designated as class Ia studies. Given the inherent difficulty in blinding rehabilitation interventions, we did not consider this as criterion for class I or Ia studies. Class II studies
consisted of prospective, nonrandomized cohort studies; retrospective, nonrandomized case-control studies; or multiplebaseline studies that permitted a direct comparison of treatment
conditions. Clinical series without concurrent controls, or single-subject designs with adequate quantification and analysis
were considered class III evidence. Articles were reviewed and
classified by at least 2 committee members. Disagreements
between the 2 primary reviewers (as happened with 7 articles)
were first addressed by discussion between reviewers to correct
minor sources of disagreement, ant then by obtaining a third
review.
Of the 87 studies, 17 were rated as class I, 8 as class II, and
62 as class III. The overall evidence within each predefined
area of intervention was synthesized and recommendations
were derived from the relative strengths of the evidence. The
level of evidence required to determine practice standards,
practice guidelines, or practice options was based on the
decision rules applied in our initial review (appendix 1). All
recommendations were reviewed by the entire committee to
ensure consensus.
Remediation of Attention Deficits
We identified 5 studies on remediation of attention deficits
after TBI. Two were class I prospective randomized studies11,12 comparing attention treatment with alternative treatments; 1 was a class II study13 that compared attention treatment with no treatment; and 2 were class III studies.14,15
Sohlberg et al11 used a crossover design to compare the
effectiveness of attention process training (APT) brain injury
education and support for 14 patients with acquired brain
injury. Self-reported changes in attention and memory functioning, as well as improvement on neuropsychologic measures
of attention-executive functioning, were greater after APT than
after therapeutic support. The second class I study12 taught 22
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able to communicate in personally relevant situations. To control for the effect of social contact, the control subjects participated in social activities (eg, movement classes, church activities) while their group communication treatment was deferred.
Participants who received the group communication treatment
showed significantly more improvement in functional communication. In an effort to evaluate a cost-effective and functional
treatment program, Worrall and Yiu36 compared a home-based,
functional communication program provided by trained volunteers with non-language-based recreational treatment and no
treatment conditions, for people with chronic aphasia. Between-group comparisons revealed significant improvement
from the functional communication program compared with no
treatment, but not compared with recreational activities.
There is evidence supporting the use of cuing techniques and
semantic analysis to improve naming ability by people with
aphasia and TBI,43,44,46,52,53,56,57,65,69,71 to improve writing
skills in patients with chronic aphasia,46-51,61,67,68 and to improve sentence production in patients with agrammatic aphasia.39,59,64,70 These studies, along with the studies from the last
review,1 support the efficacy of treating naming disorders in
people with chronic aphasia, but there is still no clear evidence
that one method is more effective than another.
A class III study by Wiseman-Hakes et al41 supported the
effectiveness of group treatment to improve pragmatic communication skills for 6 subjects with TBI. However, 1 class III
single-subject study42 failed to demonstrate the effectiveness of
pragmatic training, primarily because of the limited contextual
aspects of the treatment.
Clinical recommendations. The results from 3 class I studies33-35 of treatment of language deficits in 58 subjects after left
hemisphere stroke are consistent with the results from 3 class
I studies with 169 subjects from our prior review,1 and provide
additional support for the practice standard recommending
cognitive linguistic therapies during acute and postacute rehabilitation for such subjects. There is evidence that group communication treatment can produce clinically meaningful improvements in language functioning, including improved
functional communication, beyond the effects of social contact
alone.34,41
Two class I studies with 34 subjects33,35 and 3 class III
studies40,43,46 with 44 subjects support the concept that increased intensity of treatment for subjects with aphasia results
in improved communication skills. We recommend that treatment intensity be considered as a key factor in the rehabilitation of language skills after left hemisphere stroke, as a new
practice guideline.
Several class III studies provide additional support for the
established practice guideline that interventions for specific
language impairments, such as reading comprehension and
language formulation, are effective after left hemisphere stroke
or TBI.
Two class III studies53,65 suggest that independent computer
use may serve as an adjunct to clinician-directed treatment of
word retrieval. Based on these findings, the committee recommends as a practice option that computer-based interventions
be considered as an adjunct to treatment when there is therapist
involvement; sole reliance on repeated exposure and practice
on computer-based tasks without some involvement and intervention by a therapist is not recommended.
Recommendations for future research. Given the overall
evidence to support the effectiveness of language interventions
after left hemisphere stroke, additional research should be
directed at specific parameters of treatment related to effectiveness. Several studies suggest that more intense treatment, in-
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Nature of Treatment
Comparison
No. of
Comparisons
No. of
Patients
Percentage of
Comparisons
Showing
Differential
Benefit in Favor
of CR
CR vs other cognitive or
psychosocial treatment
CR vs pseudotreatment
CR vs conventional rehabil
CR vs no treatment
Total
10
15
14
8
47
290
582
587
342
1801
60.0
66.7
92.9
100.0
78.7
1687
Visuospatial rehabilitation
Cognitive-linguistic therapies
Specific interventions for functional
communication deficits, including pragmatic
conversational skills
Specific gestural or strategy training for apraxia
Memory strategy training
Recommendations
Recommended for persons with apraxia after left hemisphere stroke during acute
rehabilitation
Recommended for persons with mild memory impairments from TBI, including the
use of internalized strategies (eg, visual imagery) and external memory
compensations (eg, notebooks)
Recommended during postacute rehabilitation for persons with TBI. Insufficient
evidence exists to distinguish the effects of specific attention training during
acute recovery and rehabilitation from spontaneous recovery or from more
general cognitive interventions.
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Scanning training
Recommendations
DISCUSSION
This updated review of the literature regarding cognitive
rehabilitation included 17 class I studies of 291 patients with
TBI and 247 patients with stroke, with 16 of the 17 studies
providing evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation. Five class I studies provide evidence for the effectiveness of remediation for visual inattention17-19 or apraxia30,31 in
patients with stroke, and 4 studies support the effectiveness of
interventions for communication deficits after stroke.33-36 One
of these studies36 supported the use of volunteers to improve
communication skills after chronic aphasia, compared with no
treatment, but failed to demonstrate benefits when compared
with social recreation.
Among studies addressing the remediation of cognitive impairments after TBI, 2 class I studies11,12 support the training of
compensatory strategies to improve attention during the postacute period of rehabilitation. Two class I studies support the
use of memory strategy training, including the development of
internalized strategies77 and use of a memory notebook or
diary,78 for patients with mild memory deficits resulting from
TBI. An additional class I study79 indicated that an external
cueing system may benefit patients with persistent, severe
impairments of memory and planning as a result of TBI or
stroke. A class I study92 supports the use of interventions to
improve problem-solving abilities. An additional class Ia
study93 suggests that treatment to improve emotional selfregulation may benefit TBI patients; this study contributes to
the evidence supporting the internalization of self-regulatory
strategies after TBI. The studies that have demonstrated effective rehabilitation of attention, memory, and executive func-
Recommendations
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