Sreenivasan Shoba, Eth Spencer, Kirkish Patricia, Garrick Thomas
Forensic Outreach Services, GLA-Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 11301 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA.
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 2003;31(2):220-31.
Forensic psychiatrists and psychologists are often called on to provide opinions and render testimony in which minor head trauma accompanied by persistent somatic, cognitive, and/or emotional symptoms is alleged. The frequency of persistent symptoms following such minor head injury is generally low. The forensic clinician therefore must differentiate between subtle brain dysfunction, symptom amplification, psychogenic-based causes for the presence of cognitive and other deficits, or frank malingering. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to review critical issues related to the assessment of malingering and symptom exaggeration in mild head injury cases; and second, to offer a practical model for the assessment of amplified neuropsychological and psychiatric deficits in civil litigants in cases of minor head trauma.
