Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Clinical Neuropsychology Service, St. Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Clin Neuropsychol. 2020 Oct-Nov;34(7-8):1395-1410. doi: 10.1080/13854046.2020.1810324. Epub 2020 Sep 10.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis that has created sudden and unique challenges within the field of clinical neuropsychology. Adapting neuropsychology services using teleneuropsychology models (e.g. video or telephone assessments) may not always be a viable option for all providers and settings. Based on the existing teleneuropsychology literature, we propose a "contactless" evidence-based inpatient test battery to be used for in-person assessments amenable to physical distancing. In addition to the proposed test battery, we suggest a decision-making workflow process to help readers determine the appropriateness of the proposed methods given their patients' needs. Considerations for special populations (i.e. seniors, patients with brain injury, psychiatric patients), feedback, limitations of the proposed physical distancing approach, and future directions are also discussed. Our aim is that the suggested teleneuropsychology-informed battery and model may inform safe and practical neuropsychological inpatient assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic and other situations requiring contact precautions for infection prevention and control.
新型冠状病毒肺炎(COVID-19)大流行是一场全球性卫生危机,给临床神经心理学领域带来了突发且独特的挑战。使用远程神经心理学模式(例如视频或电话评估)来调整神经心理学服务,对于所有提供者和环境而言,并非总是可行的选择。基于现有的远程神经心理学文献,我们提出了一种“无接触”的基于证据的住院测试组合,用于适合身体距离的现场评估。除了提出的测试组合,我们还建议了一个决策工作流程,以帮助读者根据患者的需求确定所提出方法的适当性。此外,还讨论了特殊人群(即老年人、脑损伤患者、精神科患者)、反馈、所提出的保持身体距离方法的局限性以及未来方向等注意事项。我们的目标是,所建议的远程神经心理学信息组合和模型可以为 COVID-19 大流行期间以及其他需要接触预防以进行感染预防和控制的情况下的安全实用的神经心理学住院评估提供信息。