Could someone please give a bit of clarity here.
What is the role of a neuropsychologist??? We have one in our lives...but hell knows what she's meant to do!!!????
She's a mystery. I keep waiting for her to do or say something interesting or life changing... And then she says, well, not a lot of anything.
I think that they work with you to identify strategies to help you cope with your day to day neuro problems.
Eg strategies for memory deficits, fatigue, cognitive deficits, light/ noise sensitivity, dealing with friends and family etc.
I thought that's what I would get when I went to see one. I didn't get offered any of those things. I was diagnosed with PTSD and that was it.
I've had good ones and useless ones - can you find another?
Hi, you mentioned that you were diagnosed with PTSD, but did they give you any therapy for it?
That could be very helpful.
This is what it says on the relevant page in NHS careers information:
Specialising in clinical neuropsychology
You may be able to specialise in clinical neuropsychology. Clinical neuropsychologists work in the assessment and rehabilitation of people with brain injury or neurological disorder. They are specially trained to understand the relationship between brain and neuropsychological function. Brain injuries and neurological illnesses can affect the way a person thinks, feels and behaves and it is a clinical neuropsychologist's job to assess and help to treat the effects of these problems. You could work across a range of health and social care providers and may work as part of multi-professional teams including neurosurgeons, neurologists and allied health professionals.
You will work in a specialist service and undertake the British Psychological Society's (BPS) Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology (QiCN). Criteria for the QiCN involves completing a post-doctoral diploma in clinical neuropsychology and examination of a two-year portfolio of clinical neuropsychology cases. You will then be eligible for entry onto the BPS Specialist Register of Clinical Neuropsychologists.
I went to several appointments with a neuropsychologist. I didn't really get anything helpful other than a diagnosis of PTSD.
Hi
I’m sorry EMDR didn’t help with your brain injury - I think I’m the opposite, it’s helped with the effects of my FND, TBI and complex PTSD.
I think there’s a difficulty with labelling in our system (ironic really when I’ve just listed three of mine!) I often don’t know which bit of me is being treated by who so I do tons of research to try to get the best service…my FND diagnosis came privately via MRI and neuro consultation as NHS was so overwhelmed but re-Han was via the NHS. I got my GP to refer
I have FND because of the TBI but not sure where one ends and the other begins!
EMDR has been a revelation and helped me a lot but the trauma was revealed through FND re-hab!
Gosh not sure where I’m going with this, so good luck - labels can signpost to the service and professionals within it but I’ve had to find them! 🌼
Sorry re Han should be re-hab ( Rosa Burden Centre Bristol for FND, they also do a sleep analysis thingy for some people referred by GP and great pre and post op service for Parkinson’s )
Last one I had told me he would help me for years - can't remember receiving any help at all. After all those years turned out he was only interested in his own retirement.
I am sure there are people within the NHS who are there honestly to do good but most often it seems to me money is more important as in the rest of life. I will never understand why humans are so awful to each other - most treat their animals better.
I find the sessions completely unhelpful.
I don't think I ever had something I could call a session. After years of monthly visits I said to this guy "it's very nice sat having a chat every month but we are not achieving any thing, let's do an annual check-up in the future".
A year later shortly after Dad died we had the annual. I took my mother.
5 years later after intolerable pressure and behaviours from/by my mother and brother in our family business I broke down at the Brain Injury Service office locally. I asked for help. Covid happened. I lost my job, my business and the home where I had lived with my mother and father for 20 years. They have had 100s of 1000s of pounds and I am in social housing living on Universal Credit.
2 months ago I went to what turned out to be the final appointment with the neuropsychologist where he announced he was retiring the following week.
Help - what is that? Went to Jobcentre Plus today just so they don't stop the Universal Credit. Again I asked for help only to be told again "I wish".
I will keep stumbling on because there is only one other alternative, as much as I do not want to continue as is, I do not want to be dead.
I’m sorry for the lack of care you’ve been show. But I was pleased to read you have the will to live. Sadly I come to believe that the NHS is only served by people who get paid extremely well most often longing for the day they retire. This covid has given them a great get cause for lack of basic duty of care. My son has TBI after accident that could have been prevented March 2020. Had they headed the obvious warning signs.
He is left with not being able to read, has terrible boughts of anger due to frustration and boredom. He’s not able to drive, or even do his own banking is afraid to even go and shop. His friends are no where to be seen. He sees life not worth living. That’s hard for a parent to hear. Psychiatrist and CPNs, and other medics, are very good at ticking boxes.
Those who brought him back whereby all manner of means, he wouldn’t have survived. Believe me I’m not saying I wanted my son to die.
But as you’ve heard before they wouldn’t leave a dog they way they leave people after a server brain injury. He has lost his independence
Especially his job which he was extremely good at and was one of the few that you find in the NHS. Yes he was “one of them”. So they don’t even do the best for them.
Going from one appointment to another, doesn’t help - slight progress he has made has taken place once he was out of hospital.
Mainly by family.
Not once have I had a phone call asking how are you coping!
Brain injuries effects the whole family !!! it’s not rocket science.
Sending love that’s a whole lot of of s##t Some people go beyond and really engage but they’re rare. The system doesn’t work for a lot of us most of the time. I really believe my special needs background in early development is what’s helped me the most- good luck 🌼
Goodness...yet another person slipping through the very gappy net😞. How are you?
Good (currently the best I'm going to get) morning ored13
Thank you so much for asking - today is a whole lot better than yesterday.
Yesterday I got a call from a former neighbour telling me my brother, his girlfriend and 20 year old son had all moved in to live with my mother. That man will be sleeping in my bed in my room - that is very, very hard to deal with. They have at least a quarter of a million quid from the sale of our business property and its other assets to which I am entitled a share and needless to say I have heard nothing.
In at least the last 2 years not a single authority has lifted a finger to help.
Anyway, this morning I received an e-mail from the local Headway chairlady to say she has been speaking to the Brain Injury Service and others on my behalf and there is a meeting in 10 days on which I am top of the agenda. I have a new GP (the last one left the surgery a day after telling me how much he wanted to help). This new lady GP says she is also following up with all the various agencies.
Been here before but hopefully ....
Kind regards
A hopeful but terrified Michael
Well this sounds promising. Can o ly live a day/hour at a time I guess. I e decided that the world as a whole is quite self serving and that sometimes you just have to sever that string. Of course after some legal bits and bobs have been sorted with the business. But that is not today's things I guess. Great that you have someone fighting your corner too though!
You are so right - I always used to be independent, thinking I could and should deal with it all on my own. I have come to realise I never actually was on my own until this period.
Never believed Dad when he used to tell me in life you just have to keep joining queues until you find the right one. He was put on a boat to London from Malta after losing both parents during WW2.
That is what really keeps me from going completely stupid.
Have a good day
From reading the replies it seems people have not had a good experience. My neuropsychologist was amazing (in hindsight) and the follow up work by her and the assistant help enormously.
The assessment was over a period of 2 months. 4 long clinical sessions, the first went through my entire life history that uncovered all mental health possibilities, there were many. These were detailed in symptoms.
The next one was at a different location that was challenging to the senses, with bright lights and sounds in the background. It was a large space. I had to bring someone with me who was asked questions in comparing me before the accident and what they now saw. This was an assessment of the senses and perception.
The next one was in a small confined space with only internal lighting. A number of cognitive tests were carried out.
The fourth one was in a controlled environment, 'the blue room', a neutral setting with no internal lights or sounds, the windows had light diffusing blinds. A long series of visual/perceptual and cognitive tests were carried out.
The final 5th session was a meeting where she unraveled all the findings from the previous four. She said she had been able to 'peel off' the layers of my mind/brain, segregating any previous mental health symptoms from the current symptoms. They were manifestly different and that this was not a mental health issue. She explained in detail the functional cognitive deficits and said that sensory perceptual issues greatly influenced their functioning.
Due to a lack of funding they did not provide any rehabilitation. From a professional basis she was not allowed to discuss any alternative methods of rehabilitation. But she said if she were to speak to me as a private individual she would strongly advise me to seek out functional methods to get rehabilitated.
I had already found optometry for visual issues and she encouraged me to continue along these lines. She advised mindfulness to help train attention and concentration skills. By combining mindfulness and repetitive cognitive training their functions should be able to be retrained.
I had a follow up appointment with the neuropsychological assistant 4 months later who reiterated what had been advised and gave me some memory training exercises.
Now two years following this assessment I am almost fully recovered. There are still some minor sensory issues and higher cognitive issues that need to be practiced and fully integrated.
A couple of things stand out from this process. There is no quick fix, it takes dedication and the will to achieve your goals. The sensory and perceptual issues need to be 'fixed' before any cognitive issues. Cognition depends on sensory input.
I admit I found it hard to understand the advice given by the neuropsychologist in the first instance. I just wanted to be whole and functioning. I thought at the time that it was useless and how was this going to help but I followed the advice which was backed up by the assistant and with a lot of work and effort have come out the other side in many ways better than before the brain injury.
I have had quite a few phone conversations with the neuropsychologist since for support and backup and discussing the way ahead. We can speak openly and honestly. She admits the system in the NHS is poor and lacking in many ways and that they struggle to get funding to provide services. She said it's not just up to the system, people with brain injuries find it difficult to get motivated and find the means and direction to get rehabilitated and if this can be overcome at the personal level, bring belief, most people can fix themselves. She is as frustrated by the system as the patients and is trying to improve the service from the inside.
This is interesting. I suppose it's like many vocations where you either do the job properly, are a self starter and bare. Or you just let the clock tick by to the end of the day.
It may be worth your while reading 'The Woman Who Changed Her Brain' by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young.
Thanks for the suggestion I’ve got a couple for FND but just ordered this and it arrives tomorrow. Not managed to read a novel for three years but can dip into research more easily. Just remembered when I was a class room teacher used to make sure little ones could choose non fiction books too - they’re certainly easier for me now - all little peeps brains are all different ( despite research that’s only gender driven)
Also an absolute classic 'Of Two Minds' by Fredric Schiffer and the new one by Jill Bolte Taylor 'Whole Brain Living.' They go very well as a pair. Then once you get your head around having two separate and independent minds that communicate across the corpus collosum, giving the illusion of one mind, try 'The Master and His Emissary' by Iain McGilchrist. You can find plenty of youtube excerpts from all of these.
From these you can start to make sense of what has happened to you. also you can start to target methods to improve your functions as per Arrowsmith-Young.
If you want to get really adventurous map your brain functions onto the Buddhist eight-fold-path, which is, in effect, a map of the brain with two minds. Then by mixing Buddhist meditative techniques coupled with functional brain injury rehab you can greatly increase your recovery rate by as much as 30%.
Thanks I will start working on the advice. I was wiped out yesterday being sick with a bad head so sorry for the late reply
Thanks, I'll definitely have a look!
Hi Pink 👋
Way to make me jealous! I've just lodged a complaint against the useless one I was unfortunate to encounter. Funny, he's retiring in November...
Hi ored, there seems to be a lot of negatity about neuro-psychologist. I had a blinding one when I lived in Kent. They should assess any cognitive deficits from your baseline, and other areas, that I can't remember off the top of my head (that's a laugh, top of my head), they should help you work through difficulties you experience. Like most psychology fields, it is about you doing the work, guided by the psychologist.
Funding is a major issue to service. Where I live now, the only services in any area of care, are crisis based.
There is a need for long term rehab. God help us all if the government get their wish to make a profit from the sick.
This country will be a sorry place for anyone unless healthy. 🍀
I am still waiting for some of this to come about. She was so helpful in the beginning, or so I thought. And then just turned into the rest of the hospital.... Confusing and shut off. Oh well. Luck of the draw I guess.
😢
Others have already covered many of the roles of a Neuropsychologist and over the years I've seen two over extended periods. First thing to say fantastic service.
My first diagnosed Complex PTSD and he made home visits over a 6 month period, he then moved to a different PCT but despite that he gave me his NHS e-mail address and visited me twice when my symptoms caused serious concern. I also had a Nuero Occupational Therapist, who looked at coping strategies.
However when I moved I experienced the perennial problem of no Neropsychologist for that PCT.
Moving again and I secured an appointment and had a cognitive assessment which highlighted a symptoms I wasn't aware of. I also had Psychodynamic Therapy for 18 months, with this the Neuropsychologist says very little and it's really down to you to do the work
Good grief. Well sounds like you had something at least. I just find myself really quite deflated after our "appointments". Ice decided she's a bit of a chocolate teapot.
I am blown away by these responses. I thought I had done well for me re- hab was life changing my diagnosis of FND gave me access to that but I have had no assessments as described by pink vision. The FND label rules the show despite being unconscious for 20-40 mins with my TBI - I am lucky to have what I’ve had but it really niggles me as some things are just wrong in my brain around hardwiring I’m sure but MRI says no!
Hi LouBL0u
MRI's only show certain kinds of large physical damage. To check the wiring, as you put it, would take a functional MRI - these are usually only done for research as they are expensive. Anyone who thinks a brain injury will always show on a run of the mill MRI is absolutely incorrect.
For example, there is axonal shearing where the one part is in the grey matter and the other is in the white matter, and they can get broken, or the tails can dissolve as a result of inflammation. They are teeny tiny and are not going to show on an MRI.
As someone else on the thread here, maybe it takes standing in a lot of queues to get help, there must be someone there that just doesnt focus on the idea that FND is simply psychological - if you go read on the Hope FND website that is ony listed as one thing that may be involved.
Leaf
I think unfortunately like all doctors, some are better than others. I myself found the neuropsychologist unhelpful. I had to pay privately to see one. The first session was a 3 hour assessment, taking history and some cognitive tests lasting about 40mins. The second session was feedback in which I was told I had no cognitive deficits and that my symptoms were all from a psychological cause and that CBT would help. I returned for a few sessions of CBT in which the same was repeated for the full hour … been told it was all psychological but nothing actually been done to address any psychological causes!! I have since been assessed by an occupational therapist who says there are definite cognitive deficits. I was very disappointed with the neuropsychologist and stopped going. I had already paid over €1200 at that point.
Jeepers that is some serious money!!! For zero results. I have found that thw therapists outstrip the doctors by so very many miles!!! We've fallen on our feet with them. But I also worry that the neurologist (we don't technically have one) and neurophsycologist are important...just absent somehow. Very frustrating. What is CBT?
Hi ored13, it has been a few days so maybe Bragan is overloaded, so I will answer your question about CBT - it is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
There are youtube videos that explain it. Basically it is an attempt to teach you to notice where your attention is when you have thoughts, how you are feeling in response, and to shift your attention elsewhere which ought to then change how you feel. And, then to notice if you have a certain pattern of thinking, you can notice and redirect yourself. So, for example if you do not want to eat crisps because you are on a diet, and you know if you go down that aisle you'll get a few packs - maybe just do not walk down the crisp aisle.
In some circumstances Acceptance and Commitment Therapy works better for people. You can also find a bunch of info on that on youtube. It sounds like it would be better for dealing with circumstances that are what they are.
Leaf
Neuropsychologist - the results
neuropsychologist assessment.
Neuropsychologist assessments
Does anyone have any experience with seeing a Neuropsychologist?
My mother is in a comma with open eyes 
