The validity of the Brain Injury Cognitive Screen (BICS) as a neuropsychological screening assessment for traumatic and non-traumatic brain injury.

Objective: The Brain Injury Cognitive Screen (BICS) was developed as an in-service cognitive assessment battery for acquired brain injury patients entering community rehabilitation. The BICS focuses on domains that are particularly compromised following TBI, and provides a broader and more detailed assessment of executive function, attention and information processing than comparable screening assessments. The BICS also includes brief assessments of perception, naming, and construction, which were predicted to be more sensitive to impairments following non-traumatic brain injury.

Life and death of a child with down syndrome and a congenital heart condition: experiences of six couples.

Individuals with Down syndrome are at increased risk of congenital heart conditions (CHCs), and mortality is higher in people with Down syndrome and a CHC than those without (J. C. Vis et al.

Parental bereavement and the loss of a child with intellectual disabilities: a review of the literature.

Inequalities in health care and other risk factors mean that children with intellectual disabilities are more likely to predecease their parents. Research on the effects on family members when a child with intellectual disability dies is sparse. In the present review, the authors describe 5 studies of bereavement in intellectual disability and then turn to general parental bereavement research to inform the field of intellectual disability.

Traumatic brain injury and substance misuse: a systematic review of prevalence and outcomes research (1994-2004).

A systematic review of the evidence on substance misuse prevalence in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and outcomes associated with this population is presented. Building upon an earlier review of the area by Corigan (1995), this review is limited to research published between 1994 and 2004. Psycinfo and Medline abstract databases were searched for English-language publications citing research from Western countries on the epidemiology and outcomes of adult TBI patients (aged 15 years or older).

Spatial negative priming in early Alzheimer's disease: evidence for reduced cognitive inhibition.

Some studies of negative priming and other tasks assumed to reflect inhibitory functions suggest a decline in inhibitory processes in Alzheimer's disease. However, none of the measures used in previous studies can be interpreted as an unambiguous reflection of distractor inhibition. The present study investigates whether reductions in negative priming associated with Alzheimer's disease reflect reduced distractor inhibition, rather than perceptual review processes.

The impact of community rehabilitation for acquired brain injury on carer burden: an exploratory study.

Objectives: This study evaluated the relative efficacy of a community rehabilitation service and a more traditional outpatient service for carers of people with an acquired brain injury.

Methods: Seventeen carers who had received a community intervention were retrospectively compared with 24 carers who had received an outpatient service. Dependent variables were level of met family need, a measure of family dysfunction, carer psychopathology, and carer emotional acceptance.

The feasibility of using cognitive behaviour therapy for depression associated with Parkinson's disease: a literature review.

Clinicians and researchers have called for more information on how to treat depression in Parkinson's disease. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) has been identified as the treatment of choice for a range of psychological disorders and is increasingly applied to depression associated with chronic medical conditions. The present paper will review the relevant literature on CBT treatment effectiveness and the nature of depression in Parkinson's disease before suggesting how CBT might be adapted to assist this client group.

Mental retardation and memory for spatial locations.

Although memory for spatial location has been frequently investigated with mentally retarded populations, it is not clear that these individuals possess the same spatial memory skills as do their peers without mental retardation. We compared 30 persons with and 30 persons without mental retardation. Following either intentional or incidental learning, participants recalled and then relocated 16 objects on a matrix.