Cognitive Rehabilitation

Cognitive rehabilitation is commonly used to refer to a class of cognitive rehabilitation treatment services designed to improve cognitive function after a brain injury, including traumatic brain injury.

Cognitive rehabilitation services are frequently part of a comprehensive package of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology services provided to beneficiaries with TBI. For beneficiaries with TBI, TRICARE covers rehabilitative services provided by physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists.

TRICARE covers medical treatments that are proven safe and effective. Some treatments provided by certain cognitive rehabilitation programs haven’t been fully proven as effective stand-alone therapy for TBI. Some cognitive rehabilitation services may be individually covered for other retirees, active duty family members, and retiree family members, based on both medical-necessity determination and pre-authorization.

Type of Therapy

 Area of Cognitive Impairment Specific Examples
Attention process training Attention Letter cancellation tasks with distracting noise in background
Error management training
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning
  • Social pragmatics 
 Individual and group self-awareness training
Emotional regulation training
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning
  • Social pragmatics
     
 Anger management training
External cuing 
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning
  • Supervised living
  • BlackBerry
  • Cell phone
  • PDA
Integrated use 
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning
  • Social pragmatics
  
Memory notebook 
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning 
  • Prosthetics
  • PDA 
Problem-solving training 
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Executive functioning
  • Social pragmatics 
  • Internal problem-solving
  • Internal dialogue
Social communications skills training groups 
  • Executive functioning
  • Social pragmatics

 

 Group cognitive therapy
Various mnemonic techniques Memory 
  • Story method
  • Acronyms
  • Sentence/acrostics
  • Method of loci
  • Chunking
  • Repetition
Visual imagery mnemonics Memory Imagery-based training
Working memory training  Attention  Completing two cognitive tasks simultaneously 

See Also

Disclaimer:

This list of covered services is not all inclusive. TRICARE covers services that are medically necessaryTo be medically necessary means it is appropriate, reasonable, and adequate for your condition. and considered proven. There are special rules or limits on certain services, and some services are excluded.

Last Updated 9/17/2024