Background: Up to 85% of patients with schizophrenia demonstrate cognitive dysfunction in at least one domain.
Cognitive dysfunction plays a major role in functional outcome. It is hypothesized that addition of cognitive
training to a comprehensive psychosocial programme (OPUS) enhances both cognitive and everyday functional
capacity of patients more than the comprehensive psychosocial programme alone.
Methods: The NEUROCOM trial examines the effect on cognitive functioning and everyday functional capacity of
patients with schizophrenia of a 16-week manualised programme of individual cognitive training integrated in a
comprehensive psychosocial programme versus the comprehensive psychosocial programme alone. The cognitive
training consists of four modules focusing on attention, executive functioning, learning, and memory. Cognitive
training involves computer-assisted training tasks as well as practical everyday tasks and calendar training. It takes
place twice a week, and every other week the patient and trainer engage in a dialogue on the patient’s cognitive
difficulties, motivational goals, and progress in competence level. Cognitive training relies on errorless learning
principles, scaffolding, and verbalisation in its effort to improve cognitive abilities and teach patients how to apply
compensation strategies as well as structured problem solving techniques. At 16-week post-training and at tenmonths
follow-up, assessments are conducted to investigate immediate outcome and possible long-term effects of
cognitive training. We conduct blinded assessments of cognition, everyday functional capacity and associations
with the labour market, symptom severity, and self-esteem.
Discussion: Results from four-month and ten-month follow-ups have the potential of reliably providing
documentation of the long-term effect of CT for patients with schizophrenia.
Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00472862.