Rehabilitation of Attention Capacities following Severe Traumatic Brain Injury using Solhberg and Mateer's Model
The aim of our intervention program was to rehabilitate the attention capacities of a 44-year-old male who had sustained a severe TBI. We opted for a single-case AA?B?AA scheme over a 10?week period, administering conventional neuropsychology tests and ecological measures to assess the efficacy of the treatment. Rehabilitation interventions were carried out using the model designed by Sohlberg and Mateer (1989). Comparison of results of pre- and post-treatment assessments of the patient revealed a more marked improvement in complex attention tasks, both visual and auditory. The same quantitative improvement was not found on ecological tests. However, a qualitative analysis revealed a decrease in intrusions during these tasks. We therefore believe that the ecological tests, which called upon attention capacity through activities that require a higher level of understanding and abstraction than conventional tasks, were not well enough adapted to the subject’s abilities. Our results support the pursuit of this type of rehabilitation program. Discussion focuses on the strengths and limitations of cognitive rehabilitation and the problems encountered in evaluating treatment efficacy in a clinical setting.