headminder

Neurocognitive assessments and sports concussions

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Con­cus­sion effect ‘spans decades’ (BBC)

- “Peo­ple con­cussed in their youth show sub­tle signs of men­tal and phys­i­cal prob­lems even more than 30 years lat­er, say Cana­di­an researchers.”

- “Dr Louis de Beau­mont, who led the study, said: “This study shows that the effects of sports con­cus­sions in ear­ly adult­hood per­sist beyond 30 years post-con­cus­sion, and that it can cause cog­ni­tive and motor func­tion alter­ations as the ath­letes age.”

- “Ath­letes should be bet­ter informed about the cumu­la­tive and per­sis­tent effects of sports con­cus­sion on men­tal and phys­i­cal process­es so they know about the risk asso­ci­at­ed with return­ing to their sport.”

The study in question:

De Beau­mont L, The­o­ret H, Mon­geon D at al. Brain func­tion decline in healthy retired ath­letes who sus­tained their last sports con­cus­sion in ear­ly adult­hood. Brain 2009, Advanced online pub­li­ca­tion Jan­u­ary 27

Giv­en the impor­tance of this top­ic, which we cov­ered in our 2008 Mar­ket Research, we are hap­py to read about new resources like a new book titled Sports Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy: Assess­ment and Man­age­ment of Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury

From a recent book review by Gary S. Solomon, Ph.D.:

- “The past 15 years has yield­ed an explo­sion of infor­ma­tion on [Read more…] about Neu­rocog­ni­tive assess­ments and sports concussions

Cognitive News November-December 2008

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Here you have sev­er­al recent arti­cles and devel­op­ments wor­thy of attention:Brain Health News

1) Boom times for brain train­ing games (CNN)
2) Nav­i­gat­ing the brain fit­ness land­scape: do’s and don’ts (McK­night’s Long Term Care News)
3) USA Hock­ey and Intel­li­gym (press release)
4) Brain Fit­ness at New York Pub­lic Library (NYPL blog)
5) McDon­nell Foun­da­tion grant har­ness­es cog­ni­tive sci­ence to improve stu­dent learn­ing (press release)
6) Health insur­ance firms offer­ing online cog­ni­tive ther­a­py for insom­nia (Los Ange­les Times)
7) Head­Min­der Cog­ni­tive Sta­bil­i­ty Index: Com­put­er­ized Neu­rocog­ni­tive … (Press release)
8) THE AGE OF MASS INTELLIGENCE (Intel­li­gent Life)
9) Work­ing Lat­er in Life May Facil­i­tate Neur­al Health (Cere­brum)
10) The Cool Fac­tor: Nev­er Let Them See You Sweat (New York Times)

Links, select­ed quotes and com­men­tary: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive News Novem­ber-Decem­ber 2008

Cognitive Assessments: HeadMinder, ANAM, and more

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Just saw a very inter­est­ing press release regard­ing com­put­er-based neu­rocog­ni­tive assess­ments — a crit­i­cal part of the brain fit­ness puz­zle. How long will it take before con­sumers can have access to a reli­able and cred­i­ble annu­al “men­tal check-up”/ cog­ni­tive baseline?

Head­Min­der Cog­ni­tive Sta­bil­i­ty Index: Com­put­er­ized Neu­rocog­ni­tive … (Press release)

- “The Head­Min­der web-based Cog­ni­tive Sta­bil­i­ty Index (CSI) has proven more use­ful for blast-con­cus­sion detec­tion than the ANAM com­put­er­ized test bat­tery the DoD cur­rent­ly employs. The CSI pro­vides an imme­di­ate solu­tion to clear the back­log of 400,000 IED-exposed ser­vice mem­bers in less than two years.”

- “The CSI is a 30-minute, Inter­net-based, com­put­er­ized test that pro­vides auto­mat­ed, objec­tive mea­sures of atten­tion, mem­o­ry, response speed, and pro­cess­ing speed for ini­tial eval­u­a­tion of cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing. The CSI pro­duces stan­dard­ized reports that enable triage and deci­sion-mak­ing appro­pri­ate to a user’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions — from medic to neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist to neu­rol­o­gist and oth­er treat­ment team members.”

We cov­ered this emerg­ing type of assess­ments in the arti­cle Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: oppor­tu­ni­ties and concerns

- “In fact, one of the [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: Head­Min­der, ANAM, and more