The Effectiveness of Attention Rehabilitation in Multiple Sclerosis for Decreasing Selective Attention Deficits

Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive disease of the CNS. Cognitive impairment is a common concomitant of MS that affects various aspects of cognitive functioning including attention, memory and often affects attentional complex task such as selective attention. Present study investigated the effectiveness of attention rehabilitation on decrease of selective attention deficits in MS patients. Method: The current study was conducted with a single-subject design with A/B model and follow- up. Six Secondary Progressive MS (SPMS) were selected as study sample. Attention rehabilitation program were flash card and pen- paper. Selective attention deficits were studied by Stroop test. Results were analyzed with visual analysis, Percentage of Zero Data (PZD) and d Cohen effect size. Results: Among six subjects, four subjects showed high effectiveness in attention rehabilitation and improved after treatment phase compared to the baseline phase, and were maintained at the follow-up period. The other two subjects had questionable effectiveness in attention rehabilitation. Conclusions: These findings suggest that attention rehabilitation can decrease selective attention deficit in MS patients.