Neuropsychology assessment

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Hello Gilles
Thanks for the heads up. This kinda gives me an idea what this test is all about. I didnt know what to expect.
Ed
 
Thank you for the update on your assessment, gnault. This is very interesting!
You worked so hard, I hope you are getting sweet rest today. :)
 
Hi guys,
I just wanted to add my experience to the mix.

I had neuro/psyche testing done in 2002. I was ORDERED to go by my employer (of 30 yrs.) (of all people) as a condition of retaining my employment.( I was an Administration manager for 22 yrs. Then bumped down to a clerk for 8 yrs and then retired.) Due to the long term use of meds and my age, I was getting slower to respond and developed a bit of a learning disability over the years.

So my employer sent me for a neuro/psych evaluation to see what I could/not do so my employer (Government of Canada) would be able to tell if I was faking it to get out of performing certain tasks.

As a result, I qualified for Long Term Disability.

Randy
 
My sweet rest today was going to work. Luckily I have a job that is a bit self directed, but I have about three hundred emails to sort through. Quite a few are junk though. I was a bit surprised when doing the computer portion of feeling my foot jerks and my one forearm jerk a bit.

I wish I could have sat in the room when the doctor interviewed my wife. Just curious as to what she asked and what my wife answered. My wife said she didn't remember everything. There were times that I felt more drained than others. It was almost frustrating that I couldn't even recreate some shapes with blocks. I tried and tried but couldn't do. She say random letters from the alphabet and I had to name as many as I could that were names or numbers. Lots of words but could I thinks of more than a few of them? No.

A few other ones just resulted in complete blank thoughts.

I get a call next for a follow up appointment.

RanMan

I work for the federal government as well. My wife worries about my job just because of my memory and slip ups. I told the neuropsychologist that spell check and email recalls are my best friend some days.

I'll update again after my follow up appointment. I then wait for my appointment with my neurologist after that.

Gilles

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
Well I just got the date for my feedback session for my neuropsychologist assessment next Tuesday. I'm really curious what the outcome is going to be like. I started trying to log some of this miscues in my Medic Alert app. Last Sunday I couldn't remember being at a friend's house the day before. I was there from 4pm until almost 10pm with lots of people there. The next day my wife and I talked about Saturday night and I asked where I was Saturday night. I want to start logging these things to track minor or not so minor issues.
 
I had sleeping eeg and ones you stay in hospital for few days but never had half my brain put to sleep to my knowledge
 
Well I had my feedback session yesterday. To a certain degree it was anticlimatic. The key result from the testing is that I have attention deficit issues, minor cognitive issues, implusivity and executive functioning issues. I need to get a copy of the report as a day after I don't remember everything she said. She that I have issues with attention defecit and effective functioning that shows itself more when I'm mentally fatigued. It also doesn't help that I don't sleep well. She said a nap for an hour or so when I get home from work could help. The only problem with that is that my wife already has it mapped out that when I get in the door I say hi to everybody, don't worry about anything and go for my "nap". Almost to the point of having no choice in the matter. That doesn't sit well with me. You can't take me ability to choose or live some aspects of everyday life away from me. I still have firewood to stack or other things around the yard or the house.

I also need to get a hold of my neurologist to talk about different timings for my lamotrigine to see if that helps with my sleep patterns. My wife was glad to hear that I didn't have early onset of Alzeimer's or something similar. The doctor said that the issues I am having is typical of issues that people with frontal and temporal lobe epilepsy have. She said that people's mental / cognitive abilities often decline with age but people with these issues may have more things to keep an out for.

She said I may need to look at strategies at work that help with mental workloads. The biggest thing is completing tasks, not overlooking tasks. The ADD issue can affect that ability. Who knows as somebody else responds I'll remember a bit more. She also said my issues with reading for leisure and retaining the reading and other issues I have while reading are all part of the attention defecit.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
Thank you for the update, gnault. You certainly give me a lot to think about. I have a few questions for you. If any are too personal, please feel free to tell me you'd rather not answer.

1. Prior to this assessment, had you ever been diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder? If so, were you told it could likely be linked to E or are they two separate issues?

2. You mentioned the doctor said the issues you are experiencing are typical of patients with frontal or temporal lobe E. Did the doctor say if they are things that could go away with implementing certain things or do they get progressively worse?

3. Reading for leisure used to be my favorite hobby. Now, I never finish a single book, and while I'm reading, I retain what I've read for a few minutes, then couldn't tell you what I read. This is the same for watching movies. Did the doctor mention any strategies to help with this?

Thank you!
 
Have I ever been diagnosed with attention deficit? No I have never been diagnosed with that. I am almost 50 and this was something that they really didn't diagnose much when I was younger. I also came from an area in Northwestern Ontario that did not have a lot of medical resources available. At least 4 hrs in either direction east or west to larger cities with bigger hospitals. She didn't mention if the ADD was epilepsy related.

The doctor said the issues I am having won't go away. They could get worse if I start to have seizures again. Also our mental abilities always decline with age so we have this going against us when a lesion or other similar issues.

She didn't really give me strategies for the reading for leisure issue. She said that is related to the attention deficit. Depending on the book reread it or sections of the book. Repetition helps she said. The same thing for work is to make notes and reread things.

The key thing is making strategies to compensate for something that will always be there. The other thing that she suggested, and my wife is keeping to, is having a short power nap after work. This is to hopefully help with mental fatigue due to these issues and sleep issues that I have.

I'll type some more if I think about it or let me know if you have any questions. I need to make an appointment with my family doctor to get a copy of the report as well. Not sure where you are from but in Canada there is a disability tax credit you can apply for that reduces your taxes. Epilepsy is one of the conditions that qualify for this so I will likely see about using the report to help apply for this. If its there then there's no harm in applying. If you don't ask then you won't receive and you miss out of something you may be entitled to.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
What's your seizure background if you don't mind?

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
In March 2015, I had a tonic clonic, which I thought was out of the blue. In going over my history with my neurologist, we realized I started having absence seizures as a child. I clearly remember the episodes where I'd get a strong deja vu feeling, accompanied with a headache, strange taste in my mouth, and phantom smell, which I describe as "electrical". This happened quite a bit when I was younger, but I never mentioned them to my parents because although I thought they were strange, it never dawned on me that it could be serious.

In my mid-20s, I started having random "panic attacks". That's what they were diagnosed as. There was no external reason for them, so I never did understand how the doctor came to that conclusion. I also started hearing things that weren't there.

In my early 30s, I was driving and suddenly blacked out for a few seconds, causing me to hit the curb.

I then began having episodes where I felt very lightheaded and like I was going to faint, but never did.

Finally last year, I had the tonic clonic. I was diagnosed with complex partials (left temporal lobe), secondary generalized.

The interesting thing of it all is that when my son was a baby, he had febrile seizures, so that was what I consider my first "real" experience with seizures. At the age of 2, my nephew (my sister's son) was diagnosed with epilepsy. This year, that same sister was diagnosed with epilepsy. She had migraines as a child, nothing for years, and then recently experienced 5 tonic clonics. She too was diagnosed with complex partials (left temporal lobe), secondary generalized. So this made me want to dig a little further into family history. It turns out several people (on my mom and dad's side) have epilepsy. This definitely made me think a lot about familial genetic similarities.
 
I got my actual report back from my family doctor for my neuropsychological assessment. Lots of words that I had to google to understand. According to the report my IQ is average. I knew in advance that I wasn't a rocket scientist or anything like that. The report used the word "tangential" (1. Of, relating to, or moving along or in the direction of a tangent; 2. Merely touching or slightly connected;3. Only superficially relevant; divergent: a tangential remark) and the word circumlocutory (The use of unnecessarily wordy language, especially in being vague or evasive.)

A lot of the results of different tests were in the average range, below average and borderline range. I'd say mostly average. In one section she stated the my profile showed "a probability of clinically significant attention difficulties". I guess a round about way of saying I have attention deficit. It also said that I had a rate of commission errors and above average omission errors. My motor skills were borderline (fine motor speed) and below average (manual speed and dexterity). It also said that my intellectual and cognitive functioning was mostly low average to average.

One interesting term that she used in the report was the term "perseverative" errors. The medical dictionary described as follows: "the inappropriate persistence or repetition of a thought or action after the causative stimulus has ceased or in response to different stimuli; for example, a patient answers a question correctly but incorrectly gives the same answer to succeeding questions. Perseveration is most often associated with brain lesions but is also seen in schizophrenia." I found this most interesting as I have lesions in the right temporal lobe.

I guess you can say this is a bit more of an update or explanation of my assessment.

Gilles
 
Yes, I had three: One preoperatively, another postoperatively, and a third much later for a different purpose. Basically it entailed many tests, some academic but most not. Some were verbal and some were performance tests. Try to get a good night's sleep the night beforehand so your mind is functioning at it's best. One one test, they had many cards with pictures on them, and I was to arrange the cards to make a logical story. On another, I had to draw a bicycle. On another, I had to remember numbers. The WAIS-R (adult IQ test) will likely be used. Have fun.
 
Back
Top Bottom