Cognitive remediation: An essential approach to. improve functional outcome in schizophrenia and related disorders

Cognitive impairments represent a core deficit of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Cognition is severely impaired in patients with schizophrenia and compromises the recovery process. All patients should have an initial baseline assessment including neuropsychological and medical evaluation. After the initial treatment and stabilization of patients, neuropsychological profile of schizophrenia spectrum disorders regularly shows neurocognitive (attention, memory and cognitive function), social cognitive and metacognitive deficits. While antipsychotic medications and psychotherapy appear to have little effect on primary cognitive impairments, cognitive remediation has shown its effectiveness in reducing the cognitive deficits and their impacts in many controlled trials and meta-analyses. Many programs targeting specific components of cognition are available in French. These non-drug approaches are behavioral training based intervention that aims to improve cognitive processes and functional outcome. Cognitive remediation does not replace medical treatments or certain types of psychotherapy, but complements their effects for promoting people's recovery. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.