title: Enactive Approach and Dual-Tasks for the Treatment of Severe Behavioral and Cognitive Impairment in a Person with Acquired Brain Injury: A Case Study.
abstract: One of the most important sequela in persons who suffer from acquired brain injury is a behavioral disorder. To date, the primary approaches for the rehabilitation of this sequela are Applied Behavior Analysis, Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, and Comprehensive-Holistic Rehabilitation Programs. Despite this theoretical plurality, none of these approaches focuses on rehabilitating behavioral disorders considering the relation between affordance and environmental adaptation. To introduce this therapeutic view to neurorehabilitation, we apply the theoretical tenets of the enactive paradigm to the rehabilitation of a woman with severe behavioral and cognitive impairment. Over seventeen sessions, her behavioral and cognitive performance was assessed in relation to two seated affordances (seated on a chair and seated on a ball 65 cm in diameter) and the environmental adaptation while she was working on various cognitive tasks. These two seated affordances allowed to incorporate the theoretical assumptions of the enactive approach and to know how the behavior and the cognition were modified based on these two postural settings and the environmental adaptation. The findings indicate that the subject exhibited better behavioral (physical and verbal) and cognitive (matching success and complex task) performances when the woman worked on the therapeutic ball than when the woman was on the chair. The enactive paradigm applied in neurorehabilitation introduces a level of treatment that precedes behavior and cognition. This theoretical consideration allowed the discovery of a better relation between a seated affordance and the environmental adaptation for the improvement behavioral and cognitive performance in our case study.
authors.affiliation: Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo IbáñezSantiago, Chile; Experiential Neurorehabilitation Research Department, Fundación PolibeaMadrid, Spain; Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience, INECO Foundation, Favaloro UniversityBuenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martínez-Pernía
authors.affiliation: Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huepe
authors.affiliation: Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huepe-Artigas
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, Universidad Diego Portales Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Rut
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Correia
authors.affiliation: Experiential Neurorehabilitation Research Department, Fundación Polibea Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: García
authors.affiliation: Experiential Neurorehabilitation Research Department, Fundación Polibea Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beitia
keywords: behavioral disorder; cognitive impairment; dual-tasks; enaction; neurorehabilitation; seated affordance