Strategies for Psychiatric Rehabilitation and their Cognitive Outcomes in Schizophrenia: Review of Last Five-year Studies

Cognitive deficits are core features of Schizophrenia, showing poor response to antipsychotic treatment, therefore non-pharmacological rehabilitative approaches to such a symptom domain need to be identified. However, since not all patients with Schizophrenia exhibit the same cognitive impairment profile, individualized rehabilitative approaches should be set up.

We explored the last five-year literature addressing the issue of cognitive dysfunction response to rehabilitative methodologies in Schizophrenia to identify possible predictors of response and individualized strategies to treat such a dysfunction.

A total of 76 studies were reviewed. Possible predictors of cognitive rehabilitation outcome were identified among patient-specific and approach-specific variables and a general overview of rehabilitative strategies used in the last five years has been depicted. Studies suggest the existence of multifaced and multi-domain variables that could significantly predict pro-cognitive effects of cognitive rehabilitation, which could also be useful for identifying individual-specific rehabilitation trajectories over time.

An individualized rehabilitative approach to cognitive impairment in Schizophrenia is possible if taking into account both patient and approach specific predictors of outcomes.