A description of an intensive treatment project for the rehabilitation of severely brain-injured soldiers

Abstract

Thirteen severely brain-injured veterans are currently participating in an intensive rehabilitation project. This is a one-year vocational rehabilitation project conducted 30 hours weekly in a therapeutic workshop environment, in which all aspects of the patient's rehabilitation needs are dealt with. The three major goals of this project are: (a) Changing and modifying the behavior of the individual through the use of psychotherapy, cognitive training, training in the use of prosthetic devices and vocational training; (b) creating a supportive environment within the project in which staff and patients live together for a few hours daily and where patients are treated in groups; (c) generalizing the therapeutic effects to the community at large. This includes work with the social environment of the patient: family, friends, employer and rehabilitation workers of the Ministry of Defense. Preliminary results indicate that considerable therapeutic gains could be achieved while the patient is in a sheltered therapeutic milieu. However, there is less success in generalizing these effects to the behavior of the patient outside the sheltered environment.