GREAT Cognitive Rehabilitation
What is Cognitive Rehabilitation?
GREAT Cognitive Rehabilitation provides an individual problem-solving approach to enabling people living with dementia to function at the best level possible, remain engaged, and manage everyday activities. It uses evidence-based rehabilitation strategies to address the impact of cognitive impairments in the areas where people with dementia themselves want to manage better.
GREAT Cognitive Rehabilitation focuses on what is important to each individual and what would make a positive difference. The starting point always involves identifying meaningful personal goals – things the person wants to be able to do, or improve on, or learn – and refining them to be sure they are potentially achievable. The person, and where relevant his or her family members or supporters, then work together with a trained practitioner to plan how to tackle these goals.
The practitioner is able to identify where difficulties arise in carrying out activities or learning new skills. This understanding is used to tailor specific strategies to help overcome obstacles and enable the person to achieve his or her goals.
How was GREAT Cognitive Rehabilitation developed?
GREAT Cognitive Rehabilitation has been adapted from a well-established approach for people who have cognitive impairment as a result of a brain injury.
It is based on a large-scale clinical trial called 'GREAT', which stands for “Goal-oriented cognitive Rehabilitation in Early-stage Alzheimer’s and related dementias: a multi-centre single-blind randomised controlled Trial”. The study involved over a thousand of people with dementia and care partners, and showed positive effects of the therapy for people with dementia and their care partners.