Cognitive disorders in schizophrenia are highly correlated with the psychosocial level (e.g. relationships, quality of life and work). It has been shown that healthy relatives and people at ultrahigh risk also display cognitive dysfunctions albeit to a lesser degree. The cognitive impairment increases simultaneously with an acute phase and then reverts back to baseline levels. At the psychopathological level, negative symptoms and the disorganization syndrome show the strongest associations with cognitive deficits, whereby the extent of manifestation of deficits increases with increasing symptomatology. Cognitive remediation can improve the cognitive performance through training with small to moderate effects. With respect to drug therapy there is currently no drug with a positive effect on cognitive disorders.
Keywords: Cognitive remediation; Disorganization syndrome; Negative symptoms; Psychopathology; Psychosocial functioning level.