What is Neuropsychological Assessment?

In this video I talk about neuropsychological assessment, which I use in my clinical practice to help diagnose issues such as dementia, brain injury, or attention problems. What other topics would you like to see me cover?

[charlesmcclinon]

I have experienced this twice. It can be grueling at times, but worth it. This is especially true if you may have been diagnosed with other disorders such as depression or anxiety. What makes it grueling is that it stretches your brain in several directions within a three to four-hour span. If a professional has recommended this assessment, by all means, take the time to do it. As a highly educated person, it was difficult to understand that I have a learning disability. It is nothing to be ashamed of any more than my living with epilepsy for over fifty years. There is a definite connection to my living with epilepsy and my having a learning disability. This video is the best that I have found that describes the test in the most basic terms.

[l]

As a psychiatric nurse practitioner I appreciate this. It always surprises me how often people (even primary care providers) do not know what this is or really the difference between psychiatry and psychology (I get referred to as a "psychologist" all the time). I refer for neuropsych testing frequently to help clarify some diagnosis. I always say psychiatry, psychology and neurology are all work on the brain in different ways, we are in the sandbox together, but we are not interchangeable.

[aaandieee]

Robert! I'd love to hear you talk about so many things. Here are a few:
1. How the body remembers trauma (affects on the limbic system, "survival/fight or flight" mode, adrenals etc)
2. Intergenerational mental health issues, like second hand trauma, living with a parent with a mental health and/or mood disorder
3. Communicating with a partner about your mood disorder
4. The spectrum of treatment for mental health/mood disorders. Options like: movement meditation, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, therapy lights, exercise, journaling, etc. anything related to self care
5. Building resilience and self compassion when you are experience difficulty, depression, etc

These are all thoughts that have been very pertinent to me during my recovery from depression. My father died by suicide when I was 18 (I'm 26 now), and a lot of the shock and post traumatic stress has stayed with me. I have invested a tremendous about of time and effort this year into unlearning shame, guilt, conditional self love, maladaptive perfectionism... But this is always an evolving and ongoing conversation! So grateful to have found this channel a few years ago.

[isabelatome]

Please do more videos about neuropsychology! I love quick videos like this :)

[lawbee]

really great explanation for this area in psychology. Thanks for sharing.

[ekbrandon]

I was first introduced to all of this when I started having seizures, when I was about 8 years old. It took some time, a variety of tests, and working with several doctors of different specialties to officially get the epilepsy diagnosis. It was complicated to diagnose because I never remember my seizures, so I could never explain them to doctors

[xoxobangtan]

This short complete intro abt neuropsychological assessment is quite helpful for my assignment 💛

[gopherbar]

I had one of these this week. I had a car accident two years ago and my memory is terrible now, lack of keeping new memories and forgetting things.

[reyamsbury]

this is what I'm learning about in university right now!! my cognition lectures have been about the theory behind this kind of thing. It's very cool to hear about how this is applied!!

[whiteakers]

Really appreciate this concise and clear explaination. Thank you Dr Duff!

[Doubleentendre]

It was so surreal watching this in my university class after falling asleep to your asmr videos all those years back!

[TABE]

I enjoyed learning about the methods used in this field. Likely I would never have searched for this info until it was something I needed to know about in my personal life, but I'm glad I learned about it. It brought to mind some questions I have that I've never looked into, specifically the difference between dementia and Alzheimer's.

[yvonnekron]

Great explanation of your specialty. It’s exactly what I need

[klo]

I love learning about psychology, so these videos are great. I've always wondered how you test people, or come to the conclusion, that someone has a personality disorder. Thanks for being so educational ! 😄

[TDPCMcpho]

This is so cool!
I'd love to learn more about what you do and how you can help people

[ELWest]

This is pretty much the process Vocational Rehabilitation sent me to a few years ago, and I finally got a diagnosis of dyscalculia. It's pretty severe--I can't really do jobs where there is any kind of accounting, budgeting, or number analysis (practically everything). In fact, I had the perfect job and it changed to that right out from under me, so now I'm unemployed and have to start all over. 😠 (Maybe one of my novels will hit it big and I'll never have to do it again--ha ha, you never know!)

Even so, it really felt good to finally find out what the hell was going on. For most of my life, I just thought I was stupid. 😐

[TheLondondancer]

I had a neuropsychological assessment at UCLA hospital in April. It was for a chromosome research study. it took 5 days and was emotionally traumatizing. But we got good information out of it. You seem like a really good psychologist 😊 thanks for making videos

[oilartworks]

Question: Can an assessment be made through a digital testing performance of the client to give computation results to the neuropsychologist rather than thruogh an interview?

[elcisitiak]

Thanks for this! You left a message on my mother's phone telling her to look through Kaiser and now I have an appointment next week lol. I'm pretty excited.

[soulsugar]

Love this - Thank you - I am going to seek out some neuropsychologists in Australia right away! I had no idea this service existed !