Cognitive Neuropsychology Of Alzheimer S Disease

This book describes the latest advances in our psychological understanding of Alzheimer's disease, bringing together the main experts in this field to describe recent developments. It will be valuable for people working in related disciplines, such as neurology, psychiatry and neuroscience researchers, as well as providing an introduction to the field for psychologists.

This book draws together recent develompents in cognitive affects of Alzeimer's disease - how it affects mental functions such as memory, attention, and language. As well as providing a theoretical overview, it discusses how knowledge of neuropsychological impairment can be related to theneurobiology and genetics of the disease. Also covered are the practical issues of assesment, neurorehabilitation, and treatment. This book will be of interest both to researchers in Alzheimer's, and clinicians treating people with the disease.

The goal of this book is to introduce cognitive neuropsychology to a broad audience of clinicians and researchers. To orient readers who are interested in disorders of higher cortical function, but have little background in psychology, sufficient introductory material is provided, and yet each topic is explored in enough depth to serve as a reference for cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuropsychologists. The editor, David Margolin, M.D., Ph.D., has assembled a prominent group of researchers and clinicians, and each describes how the vocabulary, theoretical framework, and information-processing models of cognitive psychology are applied to various disorders of higher cortical function. Each chapter provides an overview of the disorder being discussed, develops a rationale for selecting the stimulus materials, and demonstrates how a given patient's deficits can be understood in terms of a breakdown in one or more cognitive domains. The contributors gear the chapters toward the practicing clinicians and use a step-by-step description of how one goes about determining the locus of the deficit in a patient. This cognitive neuropsychological approach is applied to disorders of attention, memory, language, vision, calculation, and motor control. A final chapter introduces the important role of neuroimaging techniques in diagnosis, which will continue to aid our understanding of brain-behavior relationships. Professionals in the fields of neuropsychology, neurology, clinical psychology, psychiatry, as well as practicing speech therapists and pathologists, will find this volume a comprehensive introduction to this increasingly important discipline.

The Roots of Cognitive Neuroscience examines the way brain damage can impair our cognitive and emotional systems. In chapters that range from examining memory and language to emotions and creativity, this book demonstrates that behavioral neurology and neuropsychology are just as relevant today as these research strategies were 150 years ago.

Some of the most fascinating deficits in neuropsychology concern the failure to recognise common objects from one semantic category, such as living things, when there is no such difficulty with objects from another, such as non-living things. Over the past twenty years, numerous cases of these 'category specific' recognition and naming problems have been documented and several competing theories have been developed to account for the patients' disorders. Category Specificity in Brain and Mind draws together the neuropsychological literature on category-specific impairments, with research on how children develop knowledge about different categories, functional brain imaging work and computational models of object recognition and semantic memory. The chapters are written by internationally leading psychologists and neuroscientists and the result is a review of the most up-to-date thinking on how knowledge about different categories is acquired and organized in the mind, and where it is represented in the human brain. The text will be essential reading for advanced undergraduates and researchers in the field of category specificity and a rich source of information for neuropsychologists, experimental and developmental psychologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers.

Since its early development, neuropsychology has examined the manner in which cognitive abilities are mediated by the brain. fudeed, all of neuropsy chology, and especially clinical neuropsychology, could be subsumed under this general investigation. However, a variety of factors impeded the close as sociation of neuropsychologists and cognitive/experimental psychologists. These factors were prominent influences in both camps, which kept the study of cognition away from a consideration of biological foundations and kept neuropsychology theoretically impoverished. In recent years, these factors have diminished and "cognitive neuropsychology" has become a popular term to describe the new movements to join the study of cognition with the study of brain function. The factors which kept these areas separate were manifestations of his torical trends and represent a social distance which largely happened by acci dent. The first and perhaps most important factor was that early investigators of cognition and brain function were not psychologists. Most were neurolo gists or otlier neuroscientists who were excellent observers of behavior fol lowing brain injury but had virtually no theoretical context of cognitive psy chology, which would allow them to expand and deepen their understanding of the behavior they were observing. As more psychologists who have such a context have observed the consequences of brain disorders, especially aphasia and amnesia, the study of them has become far more comprehensive as theo ries of language and memory derived from cognitive psychology have been incorporated into the investigations.

With the aging of the baby boomers and medical advances that promote longevity, older adults are rapidly becoming the fastest growing segment of the population. As the population ages, so does the incidence of age related disorders. Many predict that 15% - 20% of the baby-boomer generation will develop some form of cognitive decline over the course of their lifetime, with estimates escalating to up to 50% in those achieving advanced age. Although much attention has been directed at Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, it is estimated that nearly one third of those cases of cognitive decline result from other neuropathological mechanisms. In fact, many patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease likely have co-morbid disorders that can also influence cognition (i.e., vascular cognitive impairment), suggesting mixed dementias are grossly under diagnosed. The Clinical Handbook on the Neuropsychology of Aging and Dementia is a unique work that provides clinicians with expert guidance and a hands-on approach to neuropsychological practice with older adults. The book will be divided into two sections, the first addressing special considerations for the evaluation of older adults, and the second half focusing on common referral questions likely to be encountered when working with this age group. The authors of the chapters are experts and are recognized by their peers as opinion leaders in their chosen chapter topics. The field of neuropsychology has played a critical role in developing methods for early identification of late life cognitive disorders as well as the differential diagnosis of dementia. Neuropsychological assessment provides valuable clinical information regarding the nature and severity of cognitive symptoms associated with dementia. Each chapter will reinforce the notion that neuropsychological measures provide the clinician with sensitive tools to differentiate normal age-related cognitive decline from disease-associated impairment, aid in differential diagnosis of cognitive dysfunction in older adults, as well as identify cognitive deficits most likely to translate into functional impairments in everyday life.

Researchers who were influenced by Dr. Nelson Butters contribute articles to this volume to honor him and his thirty-year career. Their contributions reflect how Dr. Butters impacted their current work and offer an historical account of research theory and paradigmatic shifts within the field of cognitive neuropsychology. Researchers, clinicians, and students working in the neurosciences will appreciate this volume.