Abstract for presentation at 6th World Congress on Brain Injury

Twenty-five years after the advent of neurorehabilitation for acquired brain injury, there is still a tendency to view and to treat cognitive functioning and emotional reactions as largely separate entities. Cognitive, behavioral, and emotional domains are examined and described with widely different paradigms and terminologies, and in many rehabilitation centres, there is still a distinction between members of the treatment staff responsible for management of cognitive difficulties and those responsible for managing mood and emotion. A growing literature, however, attests to important linkages and interactions between these domains, and the importance for rehabilitation of understanding each client's level of awareness, as well as their understanding of, beliefs about, and emotional reactions to difficulties in cognitive and behavioral function. There is also greater acknowledgement of the range of emotional response to injury and its consequences, and the critical role that coping skills play in long term adjustment. Emerging treatment approaches have been designed to better integrate cognitive and emotional domains, foster self-regulation of cognition, mood, and emotion, and increase cognitive and behavioral self-efficacy.