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Parkinson’s Disease & Movement Disorder Center
Parkinson’s Disease & Movement Disorder Center  :  Clinical Subspecialties  :  Neuropsychological Evaluations

Neuropsychological Evaluations

Neuropsychology is concerned with brain-behavior relationships and the assessment and remediation of behavioral and cognitive changes resulting from central nervous system disease or injury. Neuropsychological evaluations are carried out in the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center for a variety of reasons.

Neuropsychological evaluation helps to determine patterns of strengths and weaknesses among the brain's "higher" functions such as intelligence, problem solving, language, memory, visual perception, and emotional regulation. An evaluation of this patterns of strengths and weaknesses can help:

  • To assist in differential diagnosis of which disease process is affecting the brain;
  • Provide a baseline so that repeat testing later on can reveal if brain functions are, for example, worsening due to disease or improving with treatment;
  • Indicate whether a person might benefit from certain treatments and rehabilitation (e.g., from speech therapy);
  • Reveal areas of daily functioning that a person may require assistance with.

All persons seeking surgical treatment of a movement disorders undergo neuropsychological evaluation both before and after surgery. The evaluation before surgery is only a part of the tests which the neurologist and neurosurgeon use to determine if a person is likely to benefit from surgery and can undergo surgery safely. The evaluation prior to surgery examines a variety of cognitive functions, mood state, stressors, coping ability, and quality of life. Similar tests are administered after surgery to assess the extent to which quality of life and mental functions have changed with treatment. The tests are mostly pencil-and-paper tests and involve answering a variety of questions. The tests typically take 2 to 3 hours, although they can take longer if a person develops "off" states repeatedly during testing.

Neuropsychological evaluations are also carried out with persons not seeking surgery. Most often the reason for those tests is assessment of depression and memory changes. The tests allow one to determine whether problems exist, how severe they are, and what they might be due to. Depending on the referral question, testing can take from 1 to 5 hours.