What are challenging activities in cognitive rehabilitation?

Structured tasks that demand higher cognitive effort to stimulate brain networks, promote neuroplasticity, and restore, improve, or compensate cognitive functions affected by injury, developmental disorders, or neurodegenerative diseases.

What benefits do challenging activities provide in cognitive rehabilitation?

They strengthen memory, attention, planning, and problem solving, increase motivation and engagement, allow individualized progression, and help prevent cognitive decline in older adults.

How are challenging activities tailored for children and adults?

Activities are adapted by age, cognitive level, and therapy goals, using adjustable difficulty, content, and parameters to match developmental needs or recovery objectives for each user.

What are examples of challenging activities for children?

Find the Fish trains episodic memory through location recall, while Pop the Balloons targets inhibition, selective and sustained attention, and processing speed with progressive difficulty stages.

What are examples of challenging activities for adults?

Sorting Bugs exercises planning, processing speed, sustained and selective attention, and can be used to recover skills after brain injury or slow decline in neurodegenerative conditions.

How do difficulty levels and customization work in these activities?

Most activities offer classic and updated versions with multiple stages; users advance or regress based on performance, and therapists can modify parameters to fit individual rehabilitation needs.

Challenging Neurorehabilitation Exercises for Children and Adults

In this article, we explore the importance of including challenging activities in cognitive rehabilitation programs and provide examples of specific challenging activities for children and adults.

Cognitive rehabilitation focuses on restoring, improving, or compensating for cognitive functions affected by conditions such as brain injury, neurodevelopmental disorders, or neurodegenerative diseases. Within this process, challenging activities play a crucial role by stimulating the brain and fostering its capacity to adapt.

Challenging activities in cognitive rehabilitation processes

Within this process, challenging activities play a crucial role by stimulating the brain and fostering its capacity to adapt. In addition, they promote neuroplasticity, the process by which the brain adapts and forms new neural connections.

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Benefits of challenging activities in cognitive rehabilitation

1. Stimulation of key skills

These types of activities strengthen memory, attention, planning, and problem solving.

2. Improved motivation

The progressive challenges of these activities encourage engagement and a sense of accomplishment in users.

3. Adaptability to different needs

These activities can be customized according to age, cognitive level and the specific objectives of treatment.

4. Prevention of cognitive decline

For older adults, these activities help keep cognitive function active and prevent cognitive decline.

Relevance of challenging activities

Relevance of challenging activities for children

In children, challenging activities contribute to the development of basic and advanced cognitive skills, essential for learning and daily life.

Relevance of challenging activities for adults

In adults, challenging activities help to recover skills lost after brain injury or to slow cognitive decline associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

Challenging activities for cognitive rehabilitation of children and adults

Below we present a selection of challenging activities for cognitive rehabilitation for users of all ages.

Challenging activities for cognitive rehabilitation of children

Find the Fish

What does the activity involve?

Find the Fish involves memorizing and accurately recalling the location where the fish are shown.

What does the activity train?

With this game, children can work on episodic memory.

Difficulty levels and available versions

Find the Fish can be found in the classic version, with nine different difficulty stages, and in the updated version, with twelve difficulty stages. In both, young users will advance or move back through levels depending on their correct and incorrect responses.

It also offers customization options to adapt the activity to the particular characteristics of each young user.

NeuronUP Activities - Find the Fish — Challenging NeuronUP game to train episodic memory in children: *Find the Fish*.

Pop the Balloons

What does the activity involve?

Pop the Balloons consists of popping the balloons that appear on the screen and that match the model at the top.

What does the activity train?

With this game, young users can train the inhibition, the selective attention, the sustained attention and the processing speed.

Difficulty levels and available versions

Pop the Balloons is available in the classic version and in the updated version, with twelve different difficulty stages respectively. Children will advance and move back through stages according to their correct and incorrect answers.

It is also possible to customize some parameters to adapt the activity to the particular needs of each child.

Phase 10 of the NeuronUP activity Pop the balloons.

Sorting Bugs

What does the activity involve?

Sorting Bugs consists of rearranging moving elements so that each type is on its corresponding side.

What does the activity train?

With this game for adults, users can exercise the planning, processing speed, sustained attention and selective attention.

Difficulty levels and available versions

Sorting Bugs can be found in the classic version, with nine different difficulty stages, and in the updated version, with twelve difficulty stages. Users will advance and move back through stages depending on their correct and incorrect responses.