Acknowledgment The authors would like to thank Sarah Schneck, MS, CCC-SLP, in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for assistance, especially with the discussion about speech and language therapy. The study of language disorders involves…
Acknowledgment Portions of this chapter appeared in Kirshner, H.S., 2002. Agnosias, in: Behavioral neurology: Practical science of mind and brain. Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, pp. 137–158. Agnosias are disorders of recognition. The general public is familiar with agnosia from Oliver Sacks’ patient,…
Apraxia is an inability to correctly perform learned skilled movements. In limb apraxias, there is an inability to correctly execute these movements in an arm or hand owing to neurological dysfunction. Apraxia is essentially a cognitive deficit in motor programming…
The disciplines of behavioral neurology, neuropsychiatry, and geriatric psychiatry are undergoing a scientific renaissance on a global scale ( ). The distinctions between traditional neurological and idiopathic psychiatric conditions are eroding, and the time is ripe to deconstruct the implicit…
Mental health has become a public health crisis ( ). In the past decade, suicide rates have increased 33%, mental illness has become the group of disorders with the highest years lost to disability (Global Health Data Exchange; ),…
Developmental delay occurs in approximately 1%–3% of children. Since developmental delay is common, monitoring a child’s development is an essential component of well-child care. Ongoing assessment of the child’s development at each well-child visit creates a pattern of development that…
The term intellect designates the totality of the mental or cognitive operations that compose human thought—the higher cortical functions that make up the conscious mind. The intellect and its faculties, the subject matter of human psychology, are the qualities that…
Consciousness refers to normal wakefulness with awareness of self and the external environment, interactions, and decisions. Explanations and descriptions of consciousness are complex and cross the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In medicine, the assessment of consciousness is a…
Definitions Consciousness may be defined as a state of awareness of self and surroundings. Alterations in consciousness are conceptualized into two types. The first type affects arousal and is the subject of this chapter. Sleep, the only normal form of…
Delirium is an acute mental status change characterized by abnormal and fluctuating attention. There is a disturbance in level of awareness and reduced ability to direct, focus, sustain, and shift attention ( ). These difficulties additionally impair other areas of…