Lesson 13: Neuropsychological Assessment Flashcards

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering terms, deficits, tools, and tests in neuropsychological assessment based on the provided lecture notes.

Neurology

The branch of medicine that focuses on the nervous system and its disorders.

Neuropsychology

The branch of psychology that focuses on the relationship between brain functioning and behavior.

Neuropsychological Assessment

The evaluation of brain and nervous system functioning as it relates to behavior.

Behavioral Neurology

A subspecialty of neurology with more biochemical and less behavioral emphasis.

Neurotology

A subspecialty of behavioral neurology that focuses on problems related to hearing, balance, and facial nerves.

Neurological Damage

Damage covering not only damage to the brain but also damage to the spinal cord and to all the components of the peripheral nervous system.

Lesion

A pathological alteration of tissue, such as that which could result from injury or infection.

Focal Lesion

A neurological lesion that is relatively circumscribed at one site.

Diffuse Lesion

A neurological lesion that is scattered at various sites.

Brain Damage

A general reference to any physical or functional impairment in the central nervous system that results in sensory, motor, cognitive, emotional, or related deficit.

Organicity

The factors differentiating organically impaired from normal individuals, including loss of abstraction ability, deficits in reasoning ability, and inflexibility in problem-solving tasks.

Hard Signs

Indicators of definite neurological deficit, such as abnormal reflex performance or cranial nerve damage.

Soft Signs

Indicators that suggest a neurological deficit, such as an apparent inability to accurately copy a stimulus figure or a significant discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal test scores.

Functional Deficit

A deficit that is psychological or without a known physical or structural cause.

Organic Deficit

A deficit known to have a structural or physical origin.

Acalculia

Inability to perform arithmetic calculations.

Acopia

Inability to copy geometric designs.

Agnosia

Deficit in recognizing sensory stimuli (e.g., auditory agnosia is difficulty in recognizing auditory stimuli).

Agraphia

Deficit in writing ability.

Akinesia

Deficit in motor movements.

Alexia

Inability to read.

Amnesia

Loss of memory.

Amusia

Deficit in ability to produce or appreciate music.

Anomia

Deficit associated with finding words to name things.

Anopia

Deficit in sight.

Anosmia

Deficit in sense of smell.

Aphasia

Deficit in communication due to impaired speech or writing ability, or loss of ability to express oneself or to understand spoken or written language because of some neurological deficit.

Apraxia

Voluntary movement disorder in the absence of paralysis.

Ataxia

Deficit in motor ability and muscular coordination.

Pattern Analysis

An examination approach where the examiner looks beyond performance on individual tests to a study of the pattern of test scores to indicate particular deficits.

Deterioration Quotient (DQ)

Also referred to as a deterioration index; a sign of brain damage derived from ratios and quotients based on patterns of subtest scores.

Wechsler Similarities Subtest

A traditional measure of verbal abstraction ability isolated from the Wechsler intelligence scale where the task is to identify how two objects are alike.

The Proverbs Test

An instrument specifically designed to test abstraction and related ability, containing a number of proverbs along with standardized administration instructions and normative data.

Object Sorting Test

A nonverbal test of abstraction, also known as the Color-Form Sorting Test or Weigl's Test, that requires testtakers to sort objects of different shapes and colors.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-64 Card Version (WCST-64)

A test requiring the testtaker to sort a pack of $64$ cards containing different geometric figures printed in different colors according to matching rules that must be inferred and shift as the test progresses.

Executive Function

Organizing, planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition of impulses and related activities associated with the frontal and prefrontal lobes of the brain.

Tower of Hanoi

A puzzle originating in Paris in $1883$ set up by stacking rings on one peg starting with the largest diameter, used to measure executive function.

Clock-Drawing Test (CDT)

A test where the patient draws the face of a clock with hands indicating a particular time to screen for cognitive dysfunction resulting from dementia or other conditions.

Trail Making Test

A task where the testtaker connects dots in a logical fashion to evaluate visuo-perceptual skills, working memory, and task switching.

Field of Search

A timed item type where, after being shown a sample stimulus, the testtaker's task is to locate a match as quickly as possible.

Confrontation Naming

An identification task that involves naming each stimulus presented, entailing perceptual, semantic, and lexical components.

Picture Absurdity

A task where the testtaker answers questions such as 'what's wrong or silly about this picture?' to provide insight into social comprehension and reasoning abilities.

Test of Executive Function in an Emergency (TEFE)

A performance-based instrument designed to specifically evaluate the ability of cognitively impaired patients to access assistance in the event of an emergency.

Perceptual Test

A general reference to any instrument or procedure used to evaluate varied aspects of sensory functioning, including sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and balance.

Motor Test

A general reference to any instrument or procedure used to evaluate varied aspects of one's ability and mobility, including the ability to move limbs, eyes, or other body parts.

Perceptual-Motor Test

A general reference to any instrument or procedure used to evaluate the integration or coordination of perceptual and motor abilities.

Ishihara Test

A series of color perception tests consisting of plates with dots of different colors containing embedded numbers or shapes, used to diagnose color vision deficiency.

Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test

A test requiring the examinee to determine whether $40$ pairs of monosyllabic words read aloud are the same or different.

Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2)

An individually administered test designed to assess gross and fine motor skills in children aged $4\frac{1}{2}$ to $14\frac{1}{2}$.

Purdue Pegboard Test

A test designed to measure manual dexterity using a board with two sets of $25$ holes and pegs.

Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test

A test consisting of nine cards containing abstract line drawings that the testtaker copies onto a blank sheet of paper to evaluate perceptual maturation and neurological impairment.

Controlled Word Association Test

A verbal fluency test where the examiner says a letter and the subject says as many words as possible starting with that letter.

Reitan-Indiana Aphasia Screening Test (AST)

A brief screening tool available in child and adult forms used to assess for the presence and severity of aphasia.

Short-Term Memory

A memory system where incoming information is temporarily stored for as little as seconds or as long as a minute or two; virtually synonymous with working memory.

Procedural Memory

Long-term memory for skills and procedures like driving a car, making entries on a keyboard, or riding a bicycle.

Declarative Memory

Long-term memory of factual material, categorized into semantic memory and episodic memory.

Semantic Memory

A component of declarative memory for facts.

Episodic Memory

A component of declarative memory for facts in a particular context or situation.

Implicit Memory

A variety of memory accessible only by indirect measures and not by conscious recollection.

Model of Memory

A model describing how external and internal sensory input move into conscious awareness, short-term memory, encoding, and long-term memory structures.

California Verbal Learning Test–II (CVLT-II)

A widely used test of memory yielding recall and recognition scores as well as information related to learning rate, error types, and encoding strategies.

Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-IV)

A memory test battery designed for ages $16$ to $90$ providing index scores for Auditory, Visual, Visual Working, Immediate, and Delayed Memory.

Fixed Neuropsychological Test Batteries

Prepackaged test batteries designed to comprehensively sample a patient's neuropsychological functioning.

Flexible Neuropsychological Test Batteries

Assortments of instruments hand-picked for specific purposes relevant to unique aspects of the patient and presenting problem.

Halstead–Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (H-R)

A classic neuropsychological test battery consisting of $27$ tests designed to assess organic brain damage, yielding the Halstead Impairment Index with a cutoff point of $0.5$.

Category Test

A subtest of the Halstead-Reitan battery measuring abstracting ability using stimulus figures flashed on an opaque screen.

Tactual Performance Test

A Halstead-Reitan subtest where blindfolded examinees complete the Seguin-Goddard Formboard with dominant, nondominant, and both hands.

Rhythm Test

A Halstead-Reitan subtest requiring discrimination between like and unlike pairs of musical beats, associated with right temporal brain damage.

Speech Sounds Perception Test

A Halstead-Reitan subtest consisting of $60$ nonsense words on audiotape where the task is to select spoken syllables from printed options, related to left hemisphere functioning.

Finger-Tapping Test

A Halstead-Reitan subtest measuring manual dexterity via index finger tapping speed over five consecutive $10$-second trials per hand.

Severe Impairment Battery (SIB)

A test battery divided into six subscales designed for severely impaired assessees who might otherwise perform at or near the floor of existing tests.

Functional MRI (fMRI)

A neuroimaging technique that creates real-time moving images of internal functioning to identify active brain areas during specific tasks.