Group-Based Crt For Chinese Schizophrenia

This study was moderately supported by Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission grant (No. D0906001040191, Z141107002514016), Beijing Natural Science Foundation grant (No. 7,102,086), and Fund for Capital Medical Development and Research grant (No. 2011-2013-02). The aim of this study was to test the viability of group-based CRT in Chinese subjects with schizophrenia. Individual-level cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) has been appeared to be successful for cognitive improvement and social function alleviate. One-hundred and four inpatients were randomly assigned to either 40 sessions of small-group CRT therapy or therapeutic contact-matched Musical and Dancing Therapy (MDT). All patients were assessed pre-and post-treatment. Forty-four people in the CRT gathering and 46 in the MDT amass finished the majority of the arranged treatments and examinations. Patients randomized into the control group, MDT, had the same number of therapeutic sessions as the CRT group. MDT therapy had two different activities: playing music (learning to play a fairly easy instrument, namely the xylophone) and dancing (learning to dance).

A series of correlation tests were used to investigate the correlations among the pre-post changes in cognitive domains, clinical symptoms, and social functions. If evidence of a correlation between two outcomes was found, such as cognitive improvement and social functioning changes, a stepwise regression model was calculated in which initial function scores were entered first, to test the hypothesis that some cognitive changes may be predictors of social function improvement and clinical symptom amelioration. Within-group paired t-testing showed that six of ten cognitive variables improved significantly after treatment in the CRT group, while only four improved in the MDT group. After treatment, performance on the Trail making—A, VFT, Stroop-word color, BVRT-correct, and BVRT-wrong tests improved significantly in the CRT group compared to the MDT group, as assessed by repeated measures ANOVA. The durability of cognitive and social-function benefits obtained from neurocognitive treatment is considered particularly important, many earlier studies have shown that the effect of these therapies can last 6–24 months [10,13,23], the lack of follow-up data in the present study is, therefore, an obvious limitation.

Future studies should evaluate the durability of effects. Second, earlier research suggests that CRT could improve the self-esteem of participants with schizophrenia at post-treatment [36] and the present study lacks self-esteem data. Investigations of participants’ subjective experience should be included in future studies. The study showed there was a significant improvement in many cognitive performance measures after CRT treatment. performance on several cognitive tests also improved in the MDT group, the benefits conveyed by CRT were greater in these instances. MDT was implemented here as an alternative non-pharmacological therapy to control for Hawthorne effects. This therapy is prescribed for persons with mental disorders in China. performance did improve with MDT, suggesting that therapeutic contact and amusement activity may have some benefit for cognitive function.

The study showed there was a significant improvement in many cognitive performance measures after CRT treatment. performance on several cognitive tests also improved in the MDT group, the benefits conveyed by CRT were greater in these instances. MDT was implemented here as an alternative non-pharmacological therapy to control for Hawthorne effects. This therapy is prescribed for persons with mental disorders in China. performance did improve with MDT, suggesting that therapeutic contact and amusement activity may have some benefit for cognitive function. Small-group therapy vs. one-on-one and recruited participants with severe disability, advanced ages, and comparatively longer disease durations, these results were especially encouraging. Combined with previous research, the present results indicate that CRT is an effective and promising therapy for improving cognitive function and social outcomes for participants with schizophrenia, even those with severe disability.