Current neuropsychological approaches in assessment, rehabilitation, and clinical research of central nervous system disorders.

A current review of selected clinical neuropsychological approaches in the assessment, rehabilitation, and clinical research of central nervous system (CNS) disorders is presented. Clinical neuropsychology occupies a unique place among the sciences of the human nervous system. Over the past 50 years it has been concerned mainly with brain systems involving human psychological activity and its organization and how these systems are altered upon disturbances in brain-behavior functions. The field of clinical neuropsychology differs from other groups of neurological disciplines in that its major goal to introduce selected neuropsychological functions involving the higher cortex, to discriminate between functional and structural disorders, to standardize the collection of base line information needed in assessment of the efficacy of rehabilitation techniques, and to define the role of neuropsychology in building conceptual models of the brain's functional organizaton from research. The topics covered are neuropsychological test batteries, the systems of Luria and Halstead-Reitan, implications for rehabilitation planning, and current research and its application for the future use of neuropsychoclogical test batteries.