Effectiveness of neglect rehabilitation in a randomized group study

TLDR

Neglect rehabilitation training effectiveness has been studied in two randomly selected groups of right brain‑damaged patients, highlighting the importance of training duration for learning generalization amid prior negative reports. One group received two months of targeted neglect rehabilitation immediately after admission, while the other received general cognitive stimulation for the same period before later receiving the same rehabilitation. All patients remained heminattentive two months post‑stroke, and both groups exhibited significant improvement after rehabilitation, demonstrating that the program produces meaningful, generalizable gains.

Abstract

Abstract The effectiveness of neglect rehabilitation training has been studied in two randomly selected groups of right brain-damaged patients. All patients proved heminattentive on a standard battery 2 months or more after the CVA. One group received 2 months of treatment immediately after admission to a clinic, and the other group received only general cognitive stimulation for the same amount of time. At the end of this period a comparison showed significant improvement in the first group, based on a standard test battery and a functional scale. The second group was then given rehabilitation training for neglect for the same amount of time and obtained similar improvement. It is concluded that the rehabilitation program produces significant results, which generalize to situations similar to those of everyday life. The importance of the duration of training on the generalization of learning is briefly discussed with reference to previous negative reports in the literature.