Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) adapted for acquired brain injury (ABI) patients may provide enduring benefits for mood and community integration, suggests a study appearing in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.  Researchers report that their goal within the study was to determine whether 6-month post-treatment ABI patients receiving CBT would demonstrate maintenance of psychological benefits, improved community integration, and commensurate benefits for both teletherapy and face-to-face group therapy.

The study reportedly encompassed 17 chronic ABI patients with elevated psychological distress. Researchers say to measure the study’s outcomes, they used Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), community integration questionnaire, and ways of coping questionnaire.

The study indicates that 11 CBT sessions were provided to study participants, either face-to-face or individually by phone with outcomes measuring pretreatment, post-treatment, and at 6-month follow-up. The results suggest that at 6-month follow-up, full-group scores had significantly improved in psychological distress compared to post-treatment. The results also note scores for community integration had improved, with negligible decrements from immediately post-treatment.  Researchers add that coping also improved yet was uncorrelated with mood or community integration.

Researchers conclude that CBT adapted for ABI may offer ABI patients enduring benefits for mood and community integration. The results also indicate that the efficacy of teletherapy may help prevent service access problems related to geographical remoteness and mobility restrictions. Researchers emphasize that a larger, randomized, control trial that examines underlying mechanisms of efficacy is needed.

Source: Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation