**Acknowledgements**

• Etiology and localization of brain lesions. • Emotional response following brain lesion. • Motivation and compliance to treatment.

• Disability and psycho-social consequences.

• Presence or absence of a good family support.

program according to the patient's needs.

essential to this kind of rehabilitation model.

responses in prefrontal cortex (PFC).

**5. Conclusions**

Time of monitoring with fNIRS is influenced by patient's hospitalization period. If the prefixed goal has not been achieved or if there are still dysfunctional areas that could be usefully considered for an optimal rehabilitation program, then a day-hospital formula is needed.

Changing in patient's behavior can be monitored throughout the rehabilitation period because the neuronavigation systems like fNIRS allow to change and adjust the rehabilitation

At the end of the rehabilitation program, a neuropsychological assessment is necessary to evaluate the improvement or stationarity of the early impairments via neuropsychologic standardized tests, questionnaires and so on. The results obtained are analyzed and serve to

Neurofunctional rehabilitation is planned by the psychologist in charge with the neuropsychologist experience in test administration according to the reported cognitive impairments.

In addition, other health professionals are needed such as occupational therapists and physiotherapists for motor function disorders in order to improve everyday life autonomy in activi-

Finally, care givers are important in order to set proper individual life-based stimuli, which is

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) uses low-intensity optical radiations to measure changes in light absorption by the cortical vascular tissues in order to detect changes in local concentration of oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin as a correlate of functional brain activity. Several precautions are needed to obtain a clear and optimal signal that reflects the patient's brain activity. Due to its features, NIRS is the best and most practical way to depict emotional

establish a long-term rehabilitation program applicable in everyday life.

A speech therapist is needed to evaluate speech disorder in case of aphasia.

ties of daily living (ADL) or to discourage maladaptive behaviors.

• Changing in personality.

• Deficit awareness.

100 Prefrontal Cortex

The author thanks Istituto San Celestino for the clinical support and NIRX Medizintechnick Gmbh for all the pictures.
