PSYC31H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Frontotemporal Dementia, Clinical Neuropsychology, Neuropsychological Assessment
Document Summary
General introduction: what is the relevance of neuropsychology for clinical. Psyc31 between competing hypotheses about the person"s deficits and their causes, often in a medicolegal setting of either a criminal or civil nature. Illustrated the potential danger in overreliance on formal test performance in deciding whether the patients did or did not have neuropsychological deficits. In some disorders (e. g. , frontotemporal dementia), diagnostic criteria place greater weigh ton behavioural change than on cognitive evidence: a diagnosis should never be made purely on the basis of neuropsychological test results. If a patient shows a pattern of performance that would be consistent with a particular disorder, then the most that can be concluded is that their performance is consistent with that disorder, not that they have the disorder. Important to acknowledge that more than one assessment may be necessary in order to arrive at an accurate interpretation of a patient"s difficulties: example: distinguishing between developing dementia and depression.
