Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual: Translating Evidence-Based Recommendations Into Practice

The Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual; Translating Evidence-Based Recommendations into Practice is a significant contribution to the field of brain injury rehabilitation. This landmark volume is a guide for clinicians to effectively deliver evidence-based rehabilitation interventions in everyday clinical practice. Never before has research outcomes been made so accessible for use in everyday clinical work. This vital volume raises the bar in cognitive rehabilitation by aiding clinicians in delivering high-quality, empirically-supported interventions to improve the lives of patients. Based on the series of evidence-based reviews of the scientific literature in cognitive rehabilitation conducted by Keith Cicerone, PhD, ABPP-Cn and colleagues, and published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, these evidence-based reviews identify high-quality research studies that support the use of rehabilitation interventions in a number of cognitive domains including attention, memory, language, visuospatial abilities, social-communication skills and metacognitive functions. The Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual fills provides step-by-step instructions for the interventions recommended. This Manual is an essential tool for any rehabilitation professional who regularly provides cognitive rehabilitation services. The Manual is ideally suited for clinicians who have had some formal training in cognitive rehabilitation, and who have experience working with individuals with brain injury (e.g., traumatic brain injury, stroke). The interventions described can be readily used by occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists, and other rehabilitation professionals. The Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual; Translating Evidence-Based Recommendations into Practice was created by the Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) is committed to fostering the use of empirically supported interventions to improve the lives of individuals with brain injury. A series of reviews, which are published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Cicerone et al., 2000; 2005; 2011) have reviewed the scientific literature and put forth standards and guidelines for clinical practice based on the quality of evidence available for each intervention. The Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual operationalizes or „translates“ these guidelines into step-by-step procedures that can be used by clinicians who treat individuals with brain injury. The volume is organized into six chapters. The introductory chapter compiles the clinical wisdom of the authors into a practical roadmap for structuring and implementing cognitive rehabilitation interventions. Treatment considerations and patient factors that may influence the course of treatment are discussed, and a guide to goal-setting that is applied throughout the manual is introduced. Subsequent chapters present practical guides for the implementation of evidence-based interventions for impairments in each of the following areas: Executive Functions, Memory, Attention, Hemispatial Neglect, and Social Communication. The content of each chapter draws from empirically-supported rehabilitation interventions included in the Cicerone et al. reviews (2000; 2005; 2011) and the collective clinical experience of the authors of the Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual. Wherever possible, step-by-step guidelines for implementing each intervention and setting relevant individual goals are provided, along with clinical recommendations for tailoring and modifying the intervention according to patients’ needs. In cases where in-depth treatment manuals exist, full references and links to these materials are provided. Additional appendices include rubrics for goal-setting in each of these domains of functioning, and handouts or worksheets that can be used to record and evaluate progress.