Effectiveness of cognitive remediation in the treatment of schizophrenia (clinical case)

In recent decades, neurocognitive deficits were considered in the literature as a third group of symptoms of schizophrenia, in addition to positive and negative ones. Longitudinal studies showed statistically significant decline in working memory and processing speed in first-episode individuals and in at-risk individuals who subsequently experienced a psychotic episode. These manifestations of insufficiency of cognitive functions lead to disruption of social adaptation and reduce the ability of patients to work. For a long time, there was no single examination tool that would cover most higher mental functions, including their qualitative and quantitative aspects: memory, attention and executive skills. The article presented a clinical case of a 23-year-old psychiatric hospital patient with schizophrenia, which occured with manifestations of neurocognitive deficits in the form of mild disorders of verbal and working memory, moderate impairments of verbal fluency and motor function. The patient received individual cognitive remediation classes with an individual selection of techniques. As a result of motivated medical and neuropsychological tactics, positive dynamics were achieved in the form of an improvement in all cognitive functions.