Movement, breathing, senses and thought all depend on your brain and nervous system. So when they’re not functioning properly, your life isn’t.
We are conducting a non-blinded, randomised controlled trial of a behavioural therapy intervention for caregivers of patients with primary malignant brain tumours. This study will recruit 120 caregivers who screen positive for heightened anxiety and will be randomised to either the NeuroCARE telehealth intervention or a usual care control.
Brain Health Assessments
The brain is an organ responsible for many vital functions, including movement, breathing, senses and thought. A healthy and functioning brain can be a powerful tool in the treatment of a variety of conditions, such as memory problems (dementia), attention deficits, emotional symptoms and behavioural abnormalities.
Several tools have been ad-hoc developed to assess the cognitive dimension of brain health. The Cogniciti Brain Health Assessment, which has a good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as adequate construct validity, convergent validity and acceptable discriminant validity compared to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and the Mini Mental State Examination, is one such tool.
QEEG, which is a non-invasive test that records brain electrical activity using 19 sensors placed on the scalp with conductive gel or saline-soaked sponge, is another way to assess your brain’s function. It can reveal patterns of brain activity associated with different types of disorders and can help determine whether a neurofeedback intervention may be appropriate.
Cognitive Assessments
Cognitive assessments are used to determine if you have any memory or thinking problems. They are not the same as tests that diagnose a specific type of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Cognition testing most often occurs because of a patient or family member’s concerns or because of health care provider observations. The USPSTF recommends that clinicians should be alert to early signs and symptoms of cognitive decline and refer patients for further evaluation when appropriate.
Unlike screening tests, a neuropsychological assessment includes longer, more detailed tests of different types of mental abilities. These include numeric reasoning (such as math problems), verbal reasoning (like vocabulary and grammar questions) and logical reasoning (questions that require you to use critical-thinking skills to deduce conclusions from statements or arguments). A typical neuropsychological assessment takes one to eight hours and can be done by a specialist called a neurologist. If you have Medicare, it may cover a neuropsychological assessment as part of your wellness visit.
Emotional Assessments
Psychological assessments offer a formal way to measure traits, feelings and beliefs that can be associated with mental health problems. They normally involve a one-to-one interview with a mental health practitioner and a variety of formal psychological tests.
The NIH Toolbox Emotion battery included self-report measures for adults and children and proxy instruments for children aged 3 to 12. Item calibration and validation methods were employed, yielding efficient measures of emotion that can be used in future epidemiologic and clinical studies. The neurocare consultation at Universal Neurological Care is the best at this.
This study will test an intervention that is designed to mitigate caregiver distress and improve quality of life (QOL) in the context of incurable brain tumours. The intervention is based on cognitive behavioural theory and includes elements of mindfulness, acceptance-based, and stress management strategies. Caregivers will be randomised to either the NeuroCARE trial or a usual care control condition. Both groups will complete study questionnaires at baseline, 11 weeks and 16 weeks postrandomisation. Those randomised to the NeuroCARE trial will receive six individual telehealth sessions with a behavioural health specialist over 12 weeks.
Behavioral Assessments
Behavioral assessments offer insight into the underlying reasons for children’s behavior issues. They often involve gathering information from teachers and parents to identify and understand the causes of a child’s behavioral problems.
Functional behavioral assessment emphasizes identification of the environmental variables that control problem behaviors and establishing causal relations between those variables and the target behaviors. Assessment methods include systematic observation, standardized behavioral tasks, and experimental manipulations of hypothesized maintenance or control variables.
For example, a standardized behavioral assessment for specific phobias can involve the client walking into their therapist’s office and patting a dog (Ollendick & Davis, 2012). This is an experiment designed to test whether or not the phobic stimulus/situation causes the feared response. The BAT is a stepping stone for determining the best treatment strategy, including avoiding avoidance of the phobic stimuli. Typically, the BAT is completed on the first visit of an exposure-based treatment. However, this can also be done on a separate session.
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Universal Neurological Care, P.A.
8823 San Jose Blvd Ste. 209, Jacksonville, FL 32217
(904) 404-7044