Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Treatment of cognitive impairments

More than half of the patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and a subgroup of patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder show impairment in neurocognitive and social cognitive performance. The degree of impairment varies from person to person. An improvement of cognitive impairment results in increased subjective quality of life and increased psychosocial functioning, to a much greater extent than successful treatment of other symptoms. Therefore, it is reasonable to not only recognize and bear decreased cognitive functioning in mind but also to offer specific treatment of impairments. The systematic review article in hand provides an overview of practice relevant treatment options in this respect. At present, cognitive remediation therapy shows the best treatment results, although only with moderate effect sizes. Physical activity can also be considered beneficial, even with the smaller number of studies available. Specific psychopharmacotherapy and non-invasive neurostimulation are still being assessed in clinical trials but show a promising perspective. Even though there are various beneficial treatment options to improve cognitive impairment potentially apparent in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, future research will hopefully bring about even more effective interventions.