Abstract:
Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive disease of the CNS. Cognitive impairment is a common concomitant of MS that affects various aspects of cognitive functioning including attention, memory and often affects attentional complex task such as selective attention. Present study investigated the effectiveness of attention rehabilitation on decrease of selective attention deficits in MS patients.Method: The current study was conducted with a single-subject design with A/B model and follow- up. Six Secondary Progressive MS (SPMS) were selected as study sample. Attention rehabilitation program were flash card and pen- paper. Selective attention deficits were studied by Stroop test. Results were analyzed with visual analysis, Percentage of Zero Data (PZD) and d Cohen effect size.Results: Among six subjects, four subjects showed high effectiveness in attention rehabilitation and improved after treatment phase compared to the baseline phase, and were maintained at the follow-up period. The other two subjects had questionable effectiveness in attention rehabilitation.Conclusions: These findings suggest that attention rehabilitation can decrease selective attention deficit in MS patients.
Machine summary:
The Effectiveness of Attention Rehabilitation in Multiple Sclerosis for Decreasing Selective Attention Deficits Leili Khalili1 (MSc), Behrooz Dolatshahi2 (PhD), Mehdi Farhodi3 (MD), Abbas Pourshahbaz4 (PhD), Zahra Niknam5 (MD) 1Clinical Psychologist, Corresponding author: Psychology and Psychiatry Department, The first floor of Helal-e-Ahmar central building, Abresan four-way, Tabriz, Iran, Email: Leili.
Results: Among six subjects, four subjects showed high effectiveness in attention rehabilitation and improved after treatment phase compared to the baseline phase, and were maintained at the follow-up period.
Since the 1980s, research has indicated that cognitive impairment is a common concomitant of MS, with prevalence rates ranging from 43% to 70% (Benedict, Cookfair, Gavett, 2006) at both the earlier and later stages of the disease (Piras, Magnano, Canu, 2003).
MS detrimentally affects various aspects of cognitive functioning, including attention, information processing efficiency (Litvan, Grafman, Vendrell, Martinez, 1988), executive functioning, processing speed, and short-term memory (Rao, Leo, Ellington, et al.
According to chart 1, all subjects showed a reduction in the number of error and removed in congruent and incongruent indexes in the intervention stage, although this result was not observed in the baseline stage and it had been maintained until the follow-up stage.
(View the image of this page)Chart 1: Visual analysis of Stroop test (selective attention) (View the image of this page) (View the image of this page)ccording to table 5, the Cohen effect size for the baseline–treatment phase as the index of congruent error in both subjects 4 and 5 is 2.
, 2004; Birnboim, Miller, 2004 and Lincoln, Dent, Harding, et al.