Memory and Goals

What Are Goals?
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1999) defines a goal as “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; a destination; an aim” (p. 505).

According the this “rehabilitation needs to involve personally meaningful themes, activities, settings and interactions.” (Ylvisaker and Feeney 2000).


A goal is something the individual in receipt of and participating in rehabilitation wants to achieve, and subsequent actions will be relevant and meaningful to this person when they reflect his or her longer term aims.


There are several principles of the goal-planning approach to rehabilitation.
First, the patient should be involved in setting goals.
Second, the goals set should be reasonable and client centered.
Third, they should describe the patient’s behavior when a goal is reached.
Fourth, the goals should be presented in such detail that anyone reading the plan would know what to do.
(Houts and Scott (1975) and McMillan and Sparkes (1999))


In a few words goals should
(1) be client centered,
(2) be realistic and potentially attainable during admission,
(3) be clear and specific,
(4) have a definite time deadline, and
(5) be measurable.
(Houts and Scott)
[adapted from “Memory Rehabilitation: Integrating Theory and Practice. Barbara A. Wilson, 2009]