About Elliot Cole, Ph.D.

Dr. Elliot Cole is a computer scientist known internationally for his work addressing the needs of brain injury survivors with enduring cognitive disabilities that persist even after intensive cognitive rehabilitation.

As an academic researcher in the early days of personal computing, Dr. Cole recognized that computer science had the potential to increase the cognitive performance of people with cognitive disabilities resulting from acquired brain injuries. He founded the Institute for Cognitive Prosthetics (ICP) as a research and development organization to develop technology and therapy techniques to further the recovery of these individuals, and later founded Neuro-Hope as the of clinical services arm of the Institute.

The approach Dr. Cole developed would become a roadmap for increasing cognitive performance that increased a brain injury survivor’s independence, reducing the degree of caregiver support needed and enabling them to lead more satisfying and fulfilling lives. Adapting personal technology and productivity software tools to the needs of brain injury survivors with cognitive disabilities, Dr. Cole’s approach focuses on people who continue to have cognitive disabilities after completing cognitive rehabilitation, and for whom medical science anticipated no further cognitive recovery.

From the beginning, Dr. Cole’s skills as a researcher enabled him to have immediate success in working with brain injury survivors, due in equal parts to involving patients in the design of the software that would be part of their therapy and focusing therapy on an activity related to the patient's priorities.

Employing technology as a cognitive prosthesis

The challenge in working with people with cognitive disabilities from brain injury is that these individuals have unique combinations of abilities and deficits, described in the computer science literature as a “Universe of One.” Another complication many within this user population exhibit is the need for caregiver intervention to perform certain tasks in their everyday lives.

Dr. Cole addressed these challenges from the very beginning, making changes to the user interface on personal computers in the early 1990’s when people began using productivity software, such as word processors, spreadsheets, calendars, presentation packages and email. Recognizing that these software packages had features that brain injury survivors could use to reduce their dependence on caregivers, Dr. Cole focused on customizing those key features that made them intuitive to that individual.

With significant funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Division of Fundamental Neuroscience, Dr. Cole proved that customizable versions of personal productivity tools applications, running on conventional personal computers, could rapidly restore activities important to brain injury patients who had plateaued from conventional cognitive rehabilitation.

From the beginning, Dr. Cole’s patient-centric approach achieved rapid recovery of function for activities prioritized by the individual. These outcomes were a technology effect: therapy participants using the technology could increase their cognitive performance. A few patients achieved apparent gains in cognitive functioning, which neuroscientists attributed to activating a neuroplasticity mechanism, in effect "rewiring” part of the brain.

In the traditional brain injury rehabilitation clinic setting, this approach was ignored, in favor of continuing to try to restore cognitive functioning. This is where patients and their families can make a choice and use a program like Neuro-Hope to effectively bridge gaps in cognitive functioning by using technology as a cognitive prosthetic and enable the patient to resume activities important to them and live their lives more fully.

Accomplishments

Dr. Cole is the author of more than 100 papers and presentations at scientific and professional meetings and research institutions in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. He is also the author of the book, Patient-Centered Design of Cognitive Assistive Technology for Traumatic Brain Injury Telerehabilitation. He has made annual presentations at top-tier brain injury and neurology organizations, including:

• The Brain Injury Association of America’s annual conference for survivors, providers, and researchers,

• The Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America (RESNA) annual workshop on advances, where Dr. Cole gave the update on Cognitive Assistive Technology,

• The annual computer science conference on Human Computer Interaction,

• The NIH Neurology Institute’s annual Neural Prosthesis Workshop.

The National Institutes of Health awarded several grants to Dr. Cole, including grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Division of Fundamental Neuroscience. Participating clinical sites included the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, and Moss Rehabilitation Hospital. Dr. Cole served as an NIH Study Section member for six years; Study Sections provide the scientific peer review of research proposals. Additionally, he has also served as a proposal reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the National Institute for Disabilities and Rehabilitation Research, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Dr. Cole also served as a United Nations Development Programs scientific consultant to a research institute in India.

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