Neuropsychological Assessment and Treatment for People with Non Progressive Brain Injury

This masterclass begins with a discussion of the main problems faced by people with acquired non progressive brain injury (focusing on those with traumatic brain injury; stroke; encephalitis and hypoxic brain damage). We consider how to distinguish between different cognitive problems and between cognitive; emotional and behavioural problems. The workshop continues with a description of ways to assess people with brain injury. This section will include different approaches to neuropsychological assessment; the comparison between neuropsychological and functional assessments and the kinds of questions these assessments can and cannot answer. This is followed by a description of the nature and purpose of rehabilitation and some general principles to help those with cognitive deficits. The issue of restoration versus compensation is addressed. We then look at memory; executive; attentional; visuospatial and visuoperceptual difficulties in turn and consider ways to remediate these problems. We address group versus individual therapy and how to design treatment programmes for people with cognitive impairments. Clinical examples are provided together with evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation. It will be shown that cognitive rehabilitation can help people to compensate for; bypass or reduce their everyday problems and thus survive more efficiently in their own most appropriate environments.