Course Outline

• Brief review of cognitive and affective development in children and adults - what typically happens during development if there is no brain damage?
• Brain damage at different times in the life cycle: its impact on neuropsychological, psychodynamic, and psychosocial functioning
• Toward understanding the direct and indirect effects of brain damage on personality
• Ingredients of psychological care and their relationship to formal psychotherapy
• The long-term psychological care of persons who suffer traumatic brain injury during young adulthood
• Psychological care of persons who demonstrate mild cognitive impairment and early stages of dementia
• Psychological care of school-age children (and their families) after TBI
• Psychological care of spouses of brain injured adults

Literature

• Prigatano, G.P. (1999) Principles of Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, Oxford University Press, New York NY.
• Prigatano, G.P. and Gray, J.A. (in press). Parental concerns and distress after pediatric traumatic brain injury: a qualitative study. Brain Injury.
• Albinsson, L. and Strang, P. (2003). Existential concerns of families of late-stage dementia patients: Questions of freedom, choices, isolation, death, and meaning. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 6(2): 225-235.
  

Course Outline

• Historical accounts of anosognosia and the clinical phenomena
• Recent studies on lesion location and anosognosia for hemiplegia
• Studies on the neuropsychological and neuropathological correlates of impaired self-awareness after TBI and dementia of the Alzheimer's type
• The effect of anosognosia on the process and outcome of neurorehabilitation
• Theoretical considerations in understanding anosognosia, syndromes of impaired self-awareness, and denial as a psychological method of coping following various forms of brain damage

• Prigatano, G.P. (1999) Principles of Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, Oxford University Press, New York NY.
• Prigatano, G.P. (in press). Anosognosia and the Process and Outcome of Neurorehabilitation. In D.T. Stuss, G. Winocur, and I.H. Robertson (Eds). Cognitive Neurorehabilitation: Evidence and Application, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press.
• Orfei, M.D., Robinson, R.G., Prigatano, G.P., Starkstein, S., Rusch, N., Pria, P., Caltagirone, C., and Spalletta, G. (2007). Anosognosia for hemiplegia after stroke is a multifaceted phenomenon: a systematic review of the literature. Brain.
• Prigatano, G.P. and Johnson, S.C. (2003). The Three Vectors of Consciousness and their Disturbances after Brain Injury. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation,13 (1/2), 13-29.