Hierarchy to success: a framework of functional cognitive strategies and caregiver education

Traumatic brain injury/acquired brain injury (TBI/ABI) is considered a major cause of death and disability in the United States (Blennow et al., 2016). Most often, TBI/ABI affects memory, concentration, judgment, and executive functioning skills. As a result, individuals with moderate–severe TBI/ABI often experience physical and cognitive deficits, long-term disability, and decreased quality of life (Whiteneck et al., 2016). Unaddressed cognitive deficits can result in difficulties with patient performance of meaningful and prioritized occupations and activities (Giles, 2018). Occupational therapy has a role in addressing the cognitive dysfunction that results from moderate–severe TBI/ABI. Occupational therapy practitioners’ (OTPs) role in cognitive rehabilitation based on a neurofunctional approach is to maximize patients’ safety and engagement in meaningful, purposeful activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living. Despite the role that OTPs play in addressing cognitive dysfunction, cognition has slowly been marginalized from occupational therapy’s repertoire due to unclear boundaries with other health care disciplines, including speech-language pathology and neuropsychology (Giles et al., 2020). Education is needed to ensure that OTPs understand evaluation and intervention methods based in both functional cognition and the neurofunctional approach. The proposed training program, Hierarchy to Success: A Framework of Functional Cognitive Strategies and Caregiver Education, is provided to OTP participants via an asynchronous, online training format utilizing Blackboard course sites. The training program seeks to address many of these challenges through an evidence-based, theory-driven educational training program. The program aims at increasing OTPs’ knowledge, confidence, and competence in using neurofunctional evaluation and intervention strategies to address cognitive deficits that result from TBI/ABI.2023-09-16T00:00:00