Belief Bevision applied to Neurorehabilitation Therapy

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

Characterizing the use of interactive technologies for cognitive rehabilitation in portuguese healthcare institutions

Publication . Paulino, Teresa; Cameirão, Mónica S.

The increasing predominance of cognitive deficits following neurological conditions such as dementia and stroke is a major concern in Portugal. Cognitive rehabilitation has been shown to be fundamental to alleviate some of the deficits, but it is not always customized to the specific profile of each patient. More critically, patients typically do not have rehabilitation while they are in the waiting list or after discharge. One way to address these limitations is using interactive technologies specifically designed for cognitive rehabilitation. Their digital nature allows the customization of parameters enabling personalization and adaptation to each patient’s profile, as well as the possibility of quantification of performance. In addition, these tools have the potential to be used at home, allowing patients to continue their rehabilitation and being monitored remotely, alleviating the burden of institutionalization for both patients and healthcare systems. However, before proposing novel technologies, it is imperative to understand current practices, needs, preferences and expectations of health professionals in this domain. For this purpose, we developed an online questionnaire that was distributed among health professionals in Portugal. 116 participants have responded, with 35% reporting having experience in the use of interactive technologies for cognitive rehabilitation. Our results show that health professionals that use these technologies mainly value ease of interaction, diversity of activities, task personalization to the patient’s cognitive profile, and adaptation based on performance. These and other insights will be used to inform the development of novel tools for cognitive rehabilitation in clinical and home settings.

2021Conference object

Open access

Efficacy of adaptive cognitive training through desktop virtual reality and paper-and-pencil in the treatment of mental and behavioral disorders

Publication . Câmara, J.; Ferreira, R.; Teixeira, L.; Nóbrega, J.; Romeira, C.; Bermúdez i Badia, S.; Faria, A. L.

In this work, we will assess and compare two content-equivalent cognitive training (CT) interventions delivered in desktop virtual reality (VR) (Reh@City v2.0) and paper-and-pencil (Task generator (TG)) formats in a sample of patients with mental and behavioral disorders. We found that both CT methodologies were associated with favorable cognitive, mood and quality of life outcomes observed in both the short (immediately after the intervention) and the long-term (two-months follow-up). We conclude that these CT methods should be viewed as complementary approaches in the treatment of mental and behavioral disorders.

2021Conference object

Open access