Neuropsychological Assessment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Description

The earlier edition sat on my shelf for about a decade. When the new edition arrived I was at first uneasy, as I had trouble finding some sections that I had valued in the previous edition. However, this is because Grant and Adams have made a very substantial revision to the first edition. This edition has summaries of the neuropsychological research on the following conditions: Dementia (40 very dense pages), Parkinson's and Parkinsonism, Huntington's, Tourette's, Epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, cerebrovascular disease (30 pages), hypoxia in medical conditions, diabetes, HIV, alcoholism, drug abuse, metal exposure, schizophrenia, depression, and memory dysfunction in general. Opening sections on the theory of neuropsychological assessment and a closing five chapters on consequences of TBI, assessment of driving, everyday functioning, and ability to comply with treatment orders round out the book. The section on parkinsonism includes commonalities and differential diagnosis between Alzheimer's, parkinson disease (with and without dementia), Lewy body, PSP, and 3 subtypes of MSA. I just consulted this chapter to formulate hypotheses on a current case, and it matches very closely to the advice found in "Behavioral neurology of dementia." The section on toxins is limited to lead and mercury, with a nod to arsenic and thallium. The section on neuropsychology of drug abuse (my area of interest) contains reasonable clinical summaries of our current knowledge. That is, it includes the nature and degree of impairment that might be apparent to a neuropsychologist evaluating a patient in the clinic, while omitting the subtler deficits sometimes apparent to a researcher using, say, event-related potential EEG. In sum, this book is an excellent first reference for a clinical neuropsychologist to consult on a wide variety of neuropsychiatric and medical problems that may present in a particular patient. It is worth updating if you own the older edition.