[Meta-Cognitive Ability and Brain Damage in Autoimmune Encephalitis: A Case Report]. / Otoimmün Ensefalitte Beyin Hasari ve Üst Bilissel Beceri: Bir Olgu Sunumu.

Autoimmune encephalitis is an important contributor to rapidly progressive cognitive and behavioral decline. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effects of cognitive rehabilitation in a patient with autoimmune encephalitis. We also wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of rehabilitative treatment by monitoring the cognitive and metacognitive outcomes over a time interval. We reported a case of 22 year-old female patient with autoimmune encephalitis, cognitive behavioral impairments, and severe reduction in metarepresentational capacity. We performed an assessment of personality, neuropsychological, and meta-cognitive functions at the beginning of the rehabilitative training. The last evaluation was performed six months after the discharge from the rehabilitation unit. We applied a combination of remediation, psycho-educational treatment, and psychotherapy to improve the knowledge and the empathy of the patient, to promote the selfcontrol strategies, and to prompt better behavioral management. Our findings revealed an improvement in the performance of the individual tests after rehabilitative training.

Should individuals with chronic aphasia be treated with dedicated PC-based training? Considerations about a case study.

OBJECTIVE: Aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of an emerging rehabilitative tool ("Power-AFA" - software) in the recovery of a patient with chronic non-fluent aphasia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A 56-year-old woman, affected by post-stroke severe expressive aphasia, underwent two different intensive rehabilitation trainings, including either standard language rehabilitation alone or a proper PC based speech training in addition to conventional treatment. We evaluated her cognitive and psychological profile in two separate sessions, before and after the two different trainings, by using a proper psychometric battery, to assess cognitive status, language abilities, and to estimate the presence of mood alterations and coping strategies. The overall PC-program was articulated in 6 sessions/weekly for 3 months. RESULTS: Only at the end of the PC-training, we observed an important improvement in peculiar cognitive domains (attention and memory functions), in denomination, in verbal understanding ability, in written, in communication skills as well as an optimization of the mood and coping styles. CONCLUSIONS: Computer-based cognitive and language rehabilitation, using proper and dedicated software, may be a valuable tool in improving either communication or cognitive skills in patient affected by aphasia, even in the chronic state.