Neuropsychology assessment

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gnault

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I posted something the kitchen yesterday and thought I would do it in a different context. Has anyone had a neuroscyhcology assessment done? And if so what was your experience like? My neurologist is booking one for me.

Gilles

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Yes I have, twice. The first was back in '03 when I doing my first round on surgery testing. I had an initial workup in an office visit the rest during a video EEG session.

The second time was in '13 while I had the WADA test to locate my brain functions.
The rest was during my second video EEG session. Within the ten year time my brain functions dropped 10%. :(

But I did learn that the left side of my brain controlled my vital functions. Which made me a good candidate for the surgery I had. 23+ months later and no seizures yet. :)
________________________________________________________________________

The testing itself isn't really hard. You will be asked to draw pictures, recite lists of words,
complete puzzles using both hands, just left, just right hand. The WADA test is more involved. You are hospital admitted for it. They run a IV in your body through your artery
to put each half of your brain asleep one side at a time. They ask you to preform similar tasks to establish your brain functions, etc.
 
They told me it will basically be a full day of testing. I also will be going for an extended eeg, longer than a sleep deprived and a high definition MRI. Twelve years ago they thought i had a gliosis on right temperal lobe. They said the newer machine they have can give a better resolution picture. After i left my neurologist appoi tment I went outside and couldn't remember where my car was. About fifteen minutes of walking up and down different streets and then I found it.

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I've had 2 Neuropsych assessments.

The 1st was November 2010 which was part of pre surgery testing & the other was July last year.

Both of my evaluations were done while I was having my VEEG, they involved doing memory, concentration tests so the neuropsch could assess how my memory was. He also asked some questions, pre surgery he spoke to my Mum & I to see how I dealt with epilepsy, what I wanted to get out of surgery etc as they need to see if i was mentally ready for thte surgery.
With the one last year he did it in 2 days, the 1st day he did the memory / concentration tests. The 2nd day he asked me some questions as I was having trouble remembering easy words.

Both evaluations my memory was in the normal range, and my memory hadn't changed much over the 4 years. When the neuropsych did the evaluation last year he said that the issues I was having with my memory (forgetting easy words) was to do with stress, he could see just by talking to me how stressed I was & I had been telling him about things going on in my life which caused the stress.

Good luck with your evaluation
 
I had a neuropsychology assessment in January 2015 (pre-surgery) and in December 2015 (6 months post-surgery). I'm scheduled for another one in June (1 year post-surgery). It involves different types of memory tests. Some examples not mentioned are recognition of famous faces, naming pictures of objects, and being read stories and then being asked what details you remember from the stories. There's a number of tests and it lasts for several hours. I also filled out paperwork that is a psychological evaluation. I also had a fMRI the day I had the pre-surgery assessment and will be having another fMRI the day I have the 1 year post-surgery assessment. A fMRI is real fun. You get to lie inside the noisy MRI for about 1 hour and 15 minutes and are tested part of the time that you are in the MRI. It will indicate what part of your brain is being used when responding to questions, but you don't speak. You press the button in your left or right hand to respond. Fun, fun, fun. But, we have to do what we have to do. I know there's a lot worse things. I'm actually getting paid a little money b/c I'm part of research. I had the laser ablation surgery which is fairly new.
 
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I had the neuropsych testing done 14 years ago. In fact, based on your location, I was probably in the same program and we might know a lot of the same people! I did a little digging but I'm not sure if "my" neuropsychologist is still with the program.

The testing? Pretty boring. Think of it as a test you'd have at school, not one you'd have in a hospital involving wires, needles and machines. It took most of a day and, if nothing else, was a break from the even more boring EEG monitoring. :(

If you want to read more of my experience, go here:

users.eastlink.ca/~kehoe/surgery/

You'll have to copy/paste the link.

Kevin
 
The doctor I'm seeing is Dr. Mark Sadler.

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Music36 said:
I had a neuropsychology assessment in January 2015 (pre-surgery) and in December 2015 (6 months post-surgery). I'm scheduled for another one in June (1 year post-surgery). It involves different types of memory tests. Some examples not mentioned are recognition of famous faces, naming pictures of objects, and being read stories and then being asked what details you remember from the stories. There's a number of tests and it lasts for several hours. I also filled out paperwork that is a psychological evaluation. I also had a fMRI the day I had the pre-surgery assessment and will be having another fMRI the day I have the 1 year post-surgery assessment. A fMRI is real fun. You get to lie inside the noisy MRI for about 1 hour and 15 minutes and are tested part of the time that you are in the MRI. It will indicate what part of your brain is being used when responding to questions, but you don't speak. You press the button in your left or right hand to respond. Fun, fun, fun. But, we have to do what we have to do. I know there's a lot worse things. I'm actually getting paid a little money b/c I'm part of research. I had the laser ablation surgery which is fairly new.
Click to expand...

Ah, yes, the tell-me-how-much-you-can-remember test. That one was fun. The stories start out short but get longer and longer.

I had neuropsychological testing 11 and 10 years ago, pre- and post-surgery. As others have said, the purpose of the test, as I remember it, is to check your level of cognitive function. It has been a while, but I do recall the above-mentioned story test; a test where you had to see, remember, and duplicate a pattern with blocks; I think a multiple choice identify a word's meaning test (maybe, or not). My test also involved a personality or mood inventory. If you get a copy of your results, they may include various IQ scores. In my case, I believe my IQ went up a bit after my surgery.

As another poster said, think of it more as a test you might have at school, like something you'd do one-on-one with the school counselor.
 
I has a neuropsych assessment done just after I went on lamictal. I wasn't experiencing any particular issues, it was more for setting a baseline in case I experienced cognitive side effects or memory issues on the med or in the future. As mentioned above, there were a number of recall tests for short-term and working memory. Also pattern recognition tests, and tests where you had to figure out the next figure in a series. The last test was a manual dexterity one, where you had to put pins in a board with first one hand and then the other. The whole thing took a few hours. At a second appointment I saw the neuropsych to get my results. She basically let me know how I did compared to others in my age group (what precentile my results fell in) and also offered up some tips and workarounds should I start to experience memory issues (I haven't yet).

One of the uses of the test can be to help distinguish what might be causing particular cognitive issues -- meds, seizures, other medical or emotional issues, or perhaps a combination of factors. Different kinds of memory problems can sometimes suggest specific problem areas in the brain.
 
Hi gnault,

I've had neuropsch testing done twice once before surgery and then again after surgery. My Dr. wanted to find out what area of my brain I was using the most for my memory by giving me some simple memory tests. He also saw that I was left handed and after all the testing was done he told me that it was more risky for them to do surgery on me because I was using the left side of my brain for most of my memory but what was very interesting is the Dr. found that my speech was split down both sides of my brain instead of being on just the left side, that in turn was helpful to me so if there had been any problems during my surgery I had the right side of my brain to fall back on for speech. I found it very interesting. The one test that amazed me the most was a wada test where they put half of your brain to sleep for testing. There's no pain or anything. Here's wishing you only the best and May God Bless You!

Sue
 
When they put half brain to sleep are you aware can you talk or eyes closed
 
seagull said:
When they put half brain to sleep are you aware can you talk or eyes closed
Click to expand...

That is the WADA test. They use it to determine which hemisphere is dominant for language and memory. You are aware and can talk. IIRC, once one side of the brain is put to sleep, they show you cards with words and pictures on them and ask you to read/identify them, so they actually want you awake and aware.
 
A quick update to this post that I started. I finally got my appointment for my neuropsychology assessment on the 11th of July. I believed I already mentioned in another post similar to this that I'm sure what to expect but they told me it will go from 9am until 4pm roughly. I said to someone else that I hope I have one of my "brain dead" days so they actually see some of the issues. My wife told me something the other night and by the time she had finished I forgot. I was even keeping eye contact to try and focus.
 
I had a neuropsych eval back in October (IIRC). They did a series of cognitive testing such as remembering long strings of numbers and pressing a button connected to a counter. There was some drawing involved. They would show you a picture for about 30 seconds and then you had to draw the picture back from memory. They also asked some basic history questions like who the president was at this date, etc. In my case, the testing was done over 4 hours. I was referred to the neuropsychologist by my psychiatrist. The test was done to help diagnose my mental disorder, not for epilepsy. (I wound up having a 5 day stay in a video EEG monitoring unit just about a month ago).

In the end, I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. If you're in the central Florida area, I would highly recommend going to the USF Psychiatry department in Tampa. The doctors I was seeing are very educated and care about properly diagnosing you to get the right treatment you need.
 
Well tomorrow I go for my neuropsychological test. I can't even spell that nice long word no matter how many times I write it. Unless I copy and paste or look someplace where that word is spelt I'm lost. I don't know if I'm nervous, Ijust don't know what to expect and how things will go. Am I going to have one of those days that I feel as stupid as stupid is or is it one of those days that it seems like my brain is functioning realitively well.

I haven't heard back about my EEG and my MRI was cut short by technical issues but what they did get indicated that nothing changed from previous MRIs. I think what my neurologist was trying to determine if the lesions that I have are developmental in nature.

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Hey Gilles
Hope everything goes how you need it to & good luck with everything. I go in for my psyche eval. this coming Sat. 16th. Are you getting tested for possible future surgery?
I know what you mean about your brain dead days. That has become more the rule than the exception with me. Sometimes I have trouble remembering how many toes I actually have on my feet.
Send me a note & let me know how everything went.
Ed
 
I just had my one year post-surgery neuropsychological assessment and fMRI. I won't know the results for about a month, but it will show how I compare to pre-surgery.
 
Ed
The assessment has more to do with attempting to see what might be the possible cause or area of concern with memory and other cognitive issues that seem to be creeping into my life for quite some time. Also my emotional side seems to have flattened, little to no emotions.

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Well my neuropsychological assessment experience is over. The appointment started with about a 40 minute interview with the neuropsychologist and a residency student. The asked a lot of questions and then talked to me wife for another twenty minutes. They appointment was booked until 4pm and I was done at 3:55pm. The testing was interesting in many ways. As the morning went on you could feel yourself getting tired mentally to a certain degree. After lunch it took me a while to find my car in the parkade and afterwards I almost lost my way in the hospital back to psychology.

During one tesk on the computer I had to press the spacebar everytime a letter flashed on the screen except for when an X appeared. I was usually late pressing the spacebar and I don't know how many times I pressed the spacebar when the X appeared. At least three times it seemed like I noticed my left hand jerk or twice fairly good and once my left foot jerked to one side. This was during the exercise with the letters flashing on the screen. Note sure if it was a combination of concentrating and the flashing numbers.

There was one part where they show you pattern or shapes and you had to reproduce them using 9 blocks partially red and white. Some of them I could do and some of them no matter how I looked at it I just couldn't do it. I am suppose to get a call from them in about a week to set up an appointment for the feedback session.
 
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