Prerequisite Required: Neurorehabilitation – Assisting Recovery & Function in Everyday Life Following Brain Injury (No Exceptions)
Program Description:
Advances in the treatment of individuals who sustain traumatic brain injury have resulted in greatly increased survival. The long-term quality of life for these individuals and their potential for functional independence and community integration often depends on the degree of residual problems with cognitive function and their capacity for emotional and behavioural self-regulation. This program will review some basic principles and theoretical underpinnings for working with individuals who demonstrate cognitive impairments. It will provide techniques for addressing various executive functions, particularly problem-solving, decision-making, concept learning, organization, planning and reasoning skills, in addition to basic cognitive processes such as attention, learning and memory. The course covers issues such as:
- What is Cognitive Neurorehabilitation (including the history, models of recovery, transfer and generalization of cognitive skill and theories of forgetting).
- The dynamics of, and facilitation/retraining of, attention, working memory, learning, retrieval, organization, problem-solving and decision-making, reasoning and comprehension in neurorehabilitation.
- Cognitive contributions to social interaction and integration, including its influence on the expression of emotional and behavioural engagement.
- Status of cognitive-enhancing nutrients and drugs.
- External supports for enhanced cognition.
- Efficacy and effectiveness of cognitive neurorehabilitation.
Professors, Dr. Dawn Good and Dr. Julie Baker will be teaching the program by live video conference.