Introduction: Cognitive impairments are the most common non-motor symptoms in
Parkinson’s Disease (PD). These symptoms have a negative impact on patients’ quality of life and
daily living activities. This review will focus on published articles that investigated the efficacy of
cognitive rehabilitation in PD.
Objectives: To review the existing literature on the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in PD
and highlight the most effective form of intervention to prevent cognitive decline. This review
will also point out any limitations and provide directions for future research.
Methods: Published articles available in the Web of Science and PubMed databases up to
November 2017 were reviewed for possible inclusion. We identified 15 articles that examined
the effects of cognitive rehabilitation in PD and met inclusion criteria.
Results: The main outcomes of this review indicated that, although previous studies used
different cognitive rehabilitation methodologies, all studies reported cognitive improvements on
at least one cognitive domain. Additionally, the most frequent cognitive domains showing
improvements are executive functions and attention.
Conclusion: This review reports the outcomes of studies that examined the effectiveness of
cognitive rehabilitation in PD. It also points out the limitations of the studies indicating the limited
availability of follow up data on the long-term effects of cognitive interventions. The review also
highlights the fact that some of the studies did not include a PD group who did not undergo
training. There remains, therefore, a need for longitudinal studies to investigate the potential long
term benefits of cognitive training. In addition, future investigations should examine whether any
disease characteristics such as disease stage, degree of cognitive impairment and/or the
dominant side (right/left) or specific motor symptoms (rigidity/tremor) influence treatment
efficacy.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)