PSYC31H3 Chapter Notes -Cognitive Flexibility, Spinal Cord Injury, Ecological Validity
Document Summary
Chapter 1: theory and practice of neuropsychological assessment. Any of 6 purposes will prompt a psychological evaluation: Identifying a possible neuropsychological disorder in a nonpsychiatric patient. Providing behavioural data for localizing the site of the lesion. Contributions: patient care and treatment, understanding the behaviour phenomena and brain function. Due to the development of noninvasive neurodiagnostic techniques that are highly sensitive and reliable for many diagnostic purposes. Accurate diagnosis (including localization of a lesion) is often achieved by means of the neurologists"s examination and laboratory devices. Mild traumatic brain injury (tbi: localized lesions may appear similar on neuroimaging but can have different psychosocial outcomes, cognitive assessment can document mental abilities that are inconsistent with anatomic findings. A patient"s level of functioning may exceed expectations based on neuroimaging. Neuropsychological assessment can aid in prediction: outcome of a diagnosed condition, likelihood that a neuropathological condition will manifest, practical consequences of a particular kind of brain impairment.
