Neuropsychological Evaluation in Older Persons

Abstract

“Clinical neuropsychology is concerned with developing knowledge about human brain-behavior relations, and with applying this knowledge to clinical problems” (Davison, 1974, p. 3). Another way to describe clinical neuropsychology would be to call it the study of psychological effects of brain dysfunction (Reitan, 1966; Davison, 1974). Since clinical neuropsychological tests have been found to be valid indices of the status of the brain (Halstead, 1947; Reitan, 1955a; Schreiber, Goldman, Kleinman, Goldfader, and Snow, 1976; Vega and Parsons, 1967), they may be particularly useful in gerontology; many age-related changes in psychological functions have been attributed to the changes that occur in the brain with aging (Wang, Obrist, and Busse, 1974; Welford and Birren, 1965).