MEMORY REHABILITATION - RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE-DIRECTIONS

Memory impairment is a frequent effect of different forms of brain inj uries and may be even more handicapping than severe physical problems. The purpose of this article is to critically review empirical studies on the effectiveness of different procedures of memory rehabilitation . Traditionally memory rehabilitation has focused on direct training o f memory functioning. The problem of these programs is that training e ffects hardly generalize to patients' everyday life memory problems. A s a consequence of this transfer problem, strategies have been develop ed (method of vanishing cues, errorless learning) which are restricted to the aim of teaching patients domain specific knowledge. Another as pect of memory rehabilitation concentrates on coping with memory impai rment. This may be done by alleviating demands on the patient and by i ncluding external resources into the process of recovery. On the other hand, teaching the patient to actively cope with memory related diffi culties, has recently become an essential objective of memory rehabili tation. In order to pursue this aim, traditional mnemonic techniques a re embedded into training of problem solving abilities and metamemory knowledge. Future perspectives and questions open to research are outl ined for each of the different procedures.