About Neuro–Hope

Neuro-Hope is the clinical services arm of the Institute for Cognitive Prosthetics (ICP) and focuses on the needs of brain injury survivors who have had outpatient cognitive rehabilitation and continue to have deficits in their cognitive functioning that affect their lives. ICP is a research & development organization founded by Dr. Elliot Cole, a computer scientist internationally recognized for his expertise in designing personal computing technology for treating cognitive disabilities.

Enabling rehabilitation with technology

Computers are broad-purpose cognitive machines, but people are rarely aware of the ways personal computing provides cognitive support in our daily lives. We need to remember less; we need to plan less, and we can complete tasks in less time.  When you think about it, the results are profound: we can do the same work in less time, enjoy more free time as a result, and we no longer worry about getting lost thanks to GPS on our smartphones.

For people who have developed cognitive disabilities, personal computing devices can be a godsend. Unfortunately, these technologies continue to be an underutilized resource for brain injury cognitive rehabilitation programs.

Neuro-Hope uses an approach that adopts and adapts personal computing and augments it with specialists who treat individuals with cognitive disabilities from different types of brain injury, enabling our clients to rapidly resume activities important to them, including those that needed caregiver support.

Collaborative Rehabilitation Therapy

We call this approach “Collaborative Rehabilitation Therapy.”  In addition to adapting technologies for the client’s needs, we also take a highly collaborative and patient-centered approach to everyone we treat. Therapy goals are defined by the client’s priorities, and we start with each person’s strengths, not their weaknesses, creating a positive experience that engages and motivates the client.

Another unique aspect of Collaborative Rehabilitation Therapy is the fact that the best locations for therapy are the places where our clients lead their lives, such as their homes, schools, and workplaces. These are the natural environments in which the client spends considerable time, and in which they routinely use elements of their Personal Technology Networks.

For people with cognitive disabilities, this technology helps them take part in an array of activities that would require dependence on caregiver support at a time and place dependent on caregivers. For our clinicians, seeing their patients in their natural environments supplies a wealth of information not accessible in the clinic. For more complex cases, this enables the therapist to develop and implement more complex interventions that have a better fit with the patient functioning in their natural environment.

Cognitive rehabilitation does not benefit from hands-on therapy in the way other types of rehabilitation do. Travelling to the facility drains the patient of both cognitive and physical stamina, reducing the patient’s ability to gain from therapy. More is lost on the way home because of the complex process of integrating newly gained information into long-term memory. For example, outpatients are not able to take naps after therapy that promote cognitive hygiene. In the individual’s natural environment, they are better able to understand therapy interventions and better able to retain therm. They are also able to take a nap which aids in integrating what was just presented with what goes into long-term memory. Both therapist and client gain from delivering therapy to the client’s natural environments.

Adapting the therapeutic approach to incorporate today’s technologies

Advances in personal technology are relatively rapid. Devices are being replaced every few years and software updates continually add new features which add to their usefulness. Dr. Cole has long been an advocate for the use of computer technology in addressing cognitive disabilities in brain injury survivors, whether from stroke or other anoxic injury, or traumatic injury, or as the result of other medical intervention. Whatever the underlying cause of the injury, computer technology can address the needs of many brain injury survivors who still have cognitive disabilities following conventional cognitive rehabilitation.

Today’s brain injury survivor has multiple technology devices, uses many apps, and connects online to a broad array of services and organizations that provide active support. We call this the individual’s “Personal Technology Network.”  Technology is now considered a necessity and supports many cognitive aspects of our daily activities. However, cognitive disabilities may impair more than a person’s natural cognitive functioning. Their willingness and ability to use their Personal Technology Network may also be affected.

While the WHO noted in 2001 that dependence on electronic technology for daily support was evidence of cognitive disability, now the inability to use electronic technology can be taken as evidence – or at least suspicion – of cognitive disability.

Sophisticated and specialized quaternary care

Most Neuro-Hope clients come after completing therapy at large regional or national facilities, which provide “tertiary-level” care, e.g., specialized care in a hospital setting.  Neuro-Hope is considered a quaternary care provider, providing advanced levels of specialized care via our multidisciplinary staff. provide.   

Neuro-Hope continues to be at the forefront of using personal technology to both reduce the impact of cognitive disability on daily life and to enable people with cognitive disabilities to be able to behave just like those people without cognitive disabilities.