Comparison of Rehabilitative Interventions That Ameliorate Post-stroke Working Memory Deficit: A Systematic Review

Stroke is one of the most common causes of disability in the world. It has sensory, motor, and cognitive symptoms. Many cognitive domains might get involved in a stroke. This systematic review focuses on working memory domain deficits after stroke and their various rehabilitation methods. This review is based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses(PRISMA) guidelines. For this review, we have searched PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases and screened thoroughly with the inclusion criteria of free full-text English papers in the last 10 years that have exclusively studied humans. The articles included in the search are randomized control trials (RCTs), observational studies, meta-analysis studies, systematic reviews, and traditional reviews. Consequent quality assessment was done using the most commonly used tools for each type of study and eight papers were selected. From these papers, full-text articles were studied, analyzed, and tabulated. We found five different rehabilitation methods: transcranial direct-current stimulation, computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation, physical activity, goal setting, and multimodal rehabilitation. We found that goal setting, computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation, and multimodal rehabilitation can improve working memory deficits. While transcranial direct current stimulation and physical activity were inconsistent, further studies are needed. The small sample size, no follow-up, the inclusion of only a few studies, the size of the stroke, and comorbid conditions like mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and depression were the main limitations of this study. Future reviews must include a larger number of studies with large sample sizes, including follow-up as an inclusion criterion. We need more clinical trials on these methods for better knowledge.