What is neuropsychology and why am I referred?

What is neuropsychology?

Clinical Neuropsychology is often seen as the link between neurology, psychiatry, and cognition. It is a specialty field within clinical psychology, dedicated to understanding the relationships between brain, behavior, emotions, decisions, and learning, particularly as these relationships can be applied to the diagnosis of brain disorder, the assessment of cognitive and behavioral functioning, and the design of effective treatment.

Dr. Ward at WCN, uses neuropsychological principles and research to various settings including medical/clinical, criminal forensic settings, civil litigation, establishment of need for guardianship/conservatorship, and effects of trauma and events onto someone's life and behavior.

Problems Addressed People are referred for neuropsychological evaluations are requested specifically to help understand how the different areas and systems of the brain are working. Testing is usually recommended when there are symptoms or complaints involving memory or thinking. This may be signaled by a change in concentration, organization, reasoning, memory, language, perception, coordination or personality. The change may be due to any of a number of medical, neurological, psychological or genetic causes.