Research suggests that cognitive impairment in schizophrenia accounts for more disability in real world functioning than any other aspect of the illness, including psychosis (e.g. August, 2012).
The FDA has required that clinical trials for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia demonstrate improvement on a standard performance-based cognitive assessment, as well a co-primary measure of ‘functional capacity’ that can serve as an intermediary between cognitive and functional improvement and may signal increased potential for improved outcomes.
Although the relationship between cognitive performance and standard measures of functional capacity have been well-described, less attention has been devoted to the relationship between functional capacity and measures of real world function.
We examined the relationship between real world function and performance on three measures of functional capacity, including the University of California San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA-VIM), the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS) and Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool (VRFCAT)
