Search

AbstractBackgroundPeople suffering from schizophrenia cannot easily access employment in European countries. Different types of vocational programs coexist in France: supported employment, sheltered employment (ShE), and hybrid vocational programs. It is now acknowledged that the frequent cognitive impairments constitute a major obstacle to employment for people with schizophrenia. However, cognitive remediation (CR) is an evidence-based nonpharmacological treatment for these neurocognitive deficits.MethodsRemedRehab was a multicentric randomized comparative open trial in parallel groups conducted in eight centers in France between 2013 and 2018. Participants were recruited into ShE firms before their insertion in employment (preparation phase). They were randomly assigned to cognitive training Cognitive Remediation for Schizophrenia (RECOS) or Treatment As Usual (TAU). The aim of the study was to compare with the benefits of the RECOS program on access to employment and work attendance for people with schizophrenia, measured by the ratio: number of hours worked on number of hours stipulated in the contract.ResultsSeventy-nine patients were included in the study between October 2018 and September 2019. Fifty-three patients completed the study. Hours worked / planned hours equal to 1 or greater than 1 were significantly higher in the RECOS group than in the TAU group.ConclusionsParticipants benefited from a RECOS individualized CR program allows a better rate of work attendance in ShE, compared to the ones benefited from TAU. Traditional vocational rehabilitation enhanced with individualized CR in a population of patients with schizophrenia is efficient on work attendance during the first months of work integration.

The deployment of case management and advanced nursing practice is shaking up the roles of the various professionals on mental health teams, and the usual organization of care in psychiatry. These changes can be perceived as either positive or worrying, depending on each individual's role and position. For the past 3 years, the mobile teams of the Centre rive gauche cluster at Le Vinatier hospital have been organized according to the principles of Flexible Assertive Community Treatment, and include an advanced practice nurse (APN) on their staff. The roles of the case manager and the APN have been rethought. A number of measures have facilitated the implementation of these new functions., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Predicting information is considered to be an efficient strategy to minimise processing costs by exploiting regularities in the environment, and to allow for adaptation in case of irregularities, i.e. prediction errors. How such errors impact conscious perception is unclear, especially when predictions concern elementary visual features. Here we present results from a novel experimental approach allowing us to investigate the perceptual consequences of violated low-level predictions about moving objects. Observers were presented with two squares moving towards each other with a constant speed, and reported whether they were in contact or not before they disappeared. A compelling illusion of a gap between the squares occurred when the leading edges of those squares contacted briefly. The apparent gap was larger than a physical and stable separation of 2.6 min of arc between the squares. The illusion disappeared only when the contact did not violate extrapolations of the contrast edge between the moving object and the background. The pattern of results is consistent with an early locus of the effect and cannot be explained by decisional biases, guesses, top-down, attentional or masking effects. We suggest that violations of the contrast edge extrapolation in the direction of motion have strong perceptual consequences., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: People suffering from schizophrenia cannot easily access employment in European countries. Different types of vocational programs coexist in France: supported employment, sheltered employment (ShE), and hybrid vocational programs. It is now acknowledged that the frequent cognitive impairments constitute a major obstacle to employment for people with schizophrenia. However, cognitive remediation (CR) is an evidence-based nonpharmacological treatment for these neurocognitive deficits., Methods: RemedRehab was a multicentric randomized comparative open trial in parallel groups conducted in eight centers in France between 2013 and 2018. Participants were recruited into ShE firms before their insertion in employment (preparation phase). They were randomly assigned to cognitive training Cognitive Remediation for Schizophrenia (RECOS) or Treatment As Usual (TAU). The aim of the study was to compare with the benefits of the RECOS program on access to employment and work attendance for people with schizophrenia, measured by the ratio: number of hours worked on number of hours stipulated in the contract., Results: Seventy-nine patients were included in the study between October 2018 and September 2019. Fifty-three patients completed the study. Hours worked / planned hours equal to 1 or greater than 1 were significantly higher in the RECOS group than in the TAU group., Conclusions: Participants benefited from a RECOS individualized CR program allows a better rate of work attendance in ShE, compared to the ones benefited from TAU. Traditional vocational rehabilitation enhanced with individualized CR in a population of patients with schizophrenia is efficient on work attendance during the first months of work integration.