Schizophrenia is defined as a serious mental disorder characterized by heterogeneous symptoms that have severe impacts on day-to-day functionality. Symptoms are categorized as positive (e.g., hallucinations, delusions), negative (e.g., anhedonia, avolition, asociality), and disorganized (e.g., formal thought disorder). Cognitive impairment is also a core feature of schizophrenia independent of clinical symptoms. While positive symptoms may be managed with antipsychotic medications, pharmacological treatments have little effect on cognitive deficits. There is a need for alternative treatments to target cognitive impairment. Cognitive remediation has been indicated to improve cognitive skill, particularly in the domain of working memory, along with functional outcome, particularly in the domain of empathy, in individuals with schizophrenia. A variety of neuropsychological assessments have been designed to evaluate aspects of both cognition and functionality in schizophrenia. Functional outcome measures are available in a range of modalities, including self-report and performance-based assessments. The present study aims to examine the relationship between the digit span, a measure of working memory; the University of California San Diego Performance-based Skills Assessment (UPSA), a performance-based measure of functional capacity; the Heinrich's Quality of Life Scale (QLS), a self-report measure of daily functionality; and the empathy subscale of the QLS. As working memory is a direct target of cognitive training, it was hypothesized that scores on the digit span would improve the most following cognitive remediation and computer skills training. The UPSA and the empathy subsection of the QLS are slightly more distant from the targets of cognitive training, and were therefore expected to display less improvement in score from baseline to post-intervention than the digit span. The full QLS may be influenced by a wide range of factors, including motivation, social skills, and lifestyle, and therefore was hypothesized to be the most distant from the digit span task with the least amount of score improvement over time. The results indicated that there were no significant increases in score in any of the measures from baseline to post-intervention and that none of the measures were correlated with each other. Despite these inconclusive results, further research is warranted to determine the ways that working memory and other aspects of cognition can influence functional outcome in schizophrenia in order to discover appropriate treatment targets.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Schizophrenia","Cognitive remediation","Functional outcome"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23968