For example, cognitive deficits due to a neurological condition may be missed if a patient’s cognitive function is in a normal range for their age but showed a significant drop in function over the past year. Likewise, depression is known to affect some aspects of short-term memory and reasoning, but broad measures of cognitive function can miss specific deficits that could have aided a diagnosis and accurately measured the symptoms of the diagnosed condition.Ĭollecting an accurate baseline measurement can complement a diagnosis and provide a starting point for measuring change over time. For example, someone may have perfectly normal reasoning skills, but their memory skills are being affected by a condition for which they are seeking treatment. Since diagnosing a patient is one of the more significant decisions clinicians are charged with making, better diagnostic aids are needed to support these potentially life-changing determinations.įurthermore, cognitive function is complex and made up of multiple components, and an informed diagnosis may require measuring specific areas of cognition rather than broad composite measures or categories. The same applies to mental health professionals treating disorders with known cognitive consequences, such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Self-report measures do not fully describe symptoms, so supplementing them with objective cognitive function measures allows the neurologist to confirm or rule out cognitive consequences of the injury. For example, consider a neurologist with a patient who has just suffered a head injury. Mental disorders or injuries can significantly impact cognitive functioning. It’s essential to supplement self-reported data with more complete objective data to help a clinician confirm or rule out diagnostic hypotheses and ensure a more comprehensive view of the patient’s health. Having tools to move beyond standardized cognitive assessments is critical. In addition, traditional standardized cognitive assessment tools fail to directly connect the condition in question to brain health and its impact on cognitive function. However, obtaining a diagnosis informed by individual data can be difficult, inconvenient, time-consuming, or expensive. Today, individualized care approaches (i.e., patient-centered care models that assess the unique needs of individual patients) are becoming increasingly more accepted and commonplace due to the many benefits they offer. For example, one study found that about 20%-or 900,000-of the 4.5 million children identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed, possibly due to the subjective nature of current standardized cognitive assessment methods.
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However, evaluating brain health using these traditional methods creates numerous barriers in cognitive care.ĭiagnosing and Establishing a Reliable Baselineĭiagnosis is often the first and most critical part of the patient care journey-and, unsurprisingly, often the most complex. Pen and paper tests like the MoCA, MMSE, WAIS.Self-reported information from the patient, parent, or caregiver.Assessing interventions and tracking the impact on cognition are currently accomplished through: When treating a cognitive or mental health disorder, specific interventions like weaning off medication, making sure therapy is on track, or choosing the suitable form of rehab involve big decisions that can enormously impact a patient’s life. Current Challenges with Standardized Cognitive Assessments in Evaluating Brain Health