Computer-Assisted Cognitive Training for Patients with Severe Mental Illness: a Retrospective Study.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the effectiveness of eight 45-minute sessions of computer-assisted cognitive training programme (CCTP) on improving the cognitive and functional performance of patients with Severe Mental Illness (SMI). METHODS Medical records of 16 women and 13 men aged 26 to 62 (mean, 46.34) years who participated a CCTP were reviewed. The CCTP lasted a total of 6 hours in eight sessions over 8 weeks and comprised a series of mobile applications customised to patients' specific impaired cognitive domains. Pre- and post-test performance of cognition and functioning were assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Hong Kong version (HK-MoCA) and the Brief Assessment of Prospective Memory (BAPM), respectively. RESULTS After the CCTP, the mean HK-MoCA score increased significantly (23.62 ± 5.34 vs 25.48 ± 3.75, d = 0.403, p = 0.001), with a significant increase in delayed recall (3.14 ± 1.75 vs 3.93 ± 1.44, d = 0.493, p = 0.003), and the mean BAPM score decreased significantly (1.44 ± 0.47 vs 1.26 ± 0.23, d = 0.486, p = 0.012). The improvement was greater in participants with primary-level education than in participants with secondary- or tertiary-level education in terms of the HK-MoCA score (3.83 ± 3.06 vs 1.35 ± 2.12, d = 0.942, p = 0.046) and the BAPM scores (-0.49 ± 0.43 vs -0.10 ± 0.29, d = 1.063, p = 0.035). CONCLUSION Our shortened CCTP effectively enhanced the cognitive performance and daily functioning of patients with SMI. Verbal episodic memory showed the most improvement. The improvement was greater in those with primary-level education than in those with secondary- or tertiary-level education.