The Neuropsychologist evaluates the specific problems reported by or for the client from a neuropsychological (brain-behaviour) prospective. One client, for example, reported that he would repeatedly make a special trip to a store to purchase a particular item for a project that he was involved in. When he got to the store he would becomes distracted by other items on the shelves in the store (distractibility), forget to purchase the item he set out to get (prospective memory impairment), and would instead often buy something else that drew his attention (impulsivity). He would then drive home, set to work on his project again, only to realize that he had forgotten to purchase the very item he needed. These types of problems, in a client who prior to the injury would have had no difficulties remembering to make a specific purchase, suggested the presence of impairment of frontal-lobe function. For the Neuropsychologist to confirm the presence of frontal-lobe dysfunction a pattern of impairment must emerge that is consistent with the known effects of frontal-lobe injury.
This type of functional assessment typically takes place over a two to three-day period and is comparable in cost to the cost of a full neuropsychological assessment.
Suggested criteria for determining when to request that a functional assessment be carried out are as follows:
- Evidence of significant trauma to the brain.
- Normal or near-normal performance on neuropsychological testing.
- Collateral or self-report of possible frontal-lobe impairments.
Expert neuropsychological opinion that reported behaviours are
most probably due to frontal-lobe dysfunction
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