Neuropsychological assessment: what to expect.
What is a neuropsychological assessment?
Neuropsychological assessment is often also referred to as 'cognitive assessment'. It is a way of measuring cognitive abilities (i.e. memory, attention, language etc.), as accurately as possible. The aim is to understand your strengths and weaknesses in these areas, and how any difficulties may be impacting on your daily life.
Neuropsychological assessment is based on scientific research and clinical experience. The tests that we use have been validated for the specific purpose of measuring cognitive abilities in clinical practice.
Neuropsychological assessment can only be performed by someone who has undergone very specific clinical training. The clinicians in our practice are qualified Clinical Psychologists who have undergone further highly specialist training in Neuropsychology and have extensive experience in the field.
Why is neuropsychological assessment helpful?
A neuropsychological assessment can be useful for a range of reasons. It can:
Help someone to make sense of their difficulties.
Lead to a clear set of strategies for managing cognitive difficulties.
Provide a set of recommendations to help someone to return to work.
Aid the diagnosis of a neurological condition, such as dementia.
Monitor change over time.
Quantify the impact of an injury as part of a personal injury claim.
What does it involve?
A neuropsychological assessment is usually undertaken in-person, either at 2 Harley Street or another location across London, Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties. Typically, it takes somewhere between 2-3 hours. However, our approach is flexible and we encourage people to take breaks. We often adapt assessments to be shorter when necessary e.g. if someone suffers from fatigue.
The assessment starts with an interview, which usually lasts for anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes. The aim of the interview is to help us to gather relevant background information and find out about your goals. It is usually helpful for a family member or close friend to attend this too, as they can often provide additional useful information. By the end of the interview, we hope to have developed a good understanding of your current concerns and to have put you at ease.
After the interview, you will be asked to complete a range of paper and pencil tests. This involves a range of tasks, such as repeating numbers, remembering things and completing puzzles. It is likely that you will find some of the tests easy and some hard. This is because it is quite normal to be good at some things and worse at others. If you find some things difficult it may provide us with useful information, so you should not worry about ‘passing’ the assessment. All we ask is that you try your best. In our experience, most people find the tests interesting and are surprised by how much they enjoy them.
What happens afterwards?
After the assessment, we will go away to score up all the results and write a report that explains what we found. In some cases, we will arrange a feedback session to discuss the results and answer and any questions. This feedback provides someone with a new way of understanding their difficulties and this can make things feel easier to manage. In other cases, the assessment may be only one part of a series of investigations and it may be more appropriate for you to receive feedback on all of these investigations from another professional. Either way, we will discuss this with you at the outset and ensure that you are happy with the process.
Assessments will also usually lead to a set of recommendations. For example, the assessment may reveal that your difficulties are more specific than you previously thought and are ones that can be managed using a simple set of strategies. In some cases, we may provide employers with a list of recommendations about reasonable adjustments that they might consider. In other instances, we may recommend that you are offered sessions of 'cognitive rehabilitation' to help you to develop strategies to improve things in daily life.
In a nutshell.
Neuropsychological assessment can provide valuable information relevant to to helping people understand and adapt to cognitive difficulties. If you have any questions about whether we might be able to assist you by undertaking an assessment, please contact us at: reception@thamesneuropsychology.co.uk
