What are neurocognitive disorders?
decreased mental functions due to medical diseases e.g. dementia
acquired not developmental
What are the common causes of NCDs?
disease, physical trauma, genetic predisposition
what are mild NCDs?
cognitive impairments that don’t reach the threshold of dementia
what are the cognitive functions that are faulty?
- deficits of attention and arousal: early indicator
- language deficits (aphasia)
- visuo-perceptual functioning: inability to process sensory info due to neural insult
- deficits in executive functions: often expressed as poor judgement, inappropriate behaviour, erratic mood swings
what is Broca’s aphasia?
difficulty initiating speech/producing complex words
what is Wernicke’s aphasia?
production of incoherent jumbled speech
what is conduction aphasia?
difficulty repeating speech
types of agnosia (inability to process sensory info)
- prosopagnosia (faces)
- amusia (music)
- movement
- akinetopsia (motion blindless)
- apraxia (motor deficit)
how are NCDs assessed and diagnosed?
diagnosis made on basis of cog/beh impairments detected by brain scans + biomarker assessments (blood) + behavioural + historical context
- Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV: widely used, scale that measures lots of cog functions
- Trail making task: patients should connect circles by alternating between letters and numbers
difficulties associated with diagnosis
- symptoms resemble other psychopathologies
- symptom overlap with neurological disorders
- common risk factor=age
- closed head trauma may produce memory deficits that resemble AD
- can be mild or major
cognitive rehabilitation programs
- for attentional deficits: attention process training=e.g. press buzzer when word is opposite to the previous word
- for visuo-perceptual deficits: compensatory strategies e.g. for prosopagnosia focus on voice, body shape etc.
- for apraxia: gestural training, VR
- for language deficits: speech therapy
- for aphasia: constraint induced movement therapy- mass practice of verbal responses/group communication treatment
- for memory deficits: everyday memory prompts/visual imagery mnemonics
- for exec functions: overlap with memory and attention interventions/goal management training
