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Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS)
About the NAS
The Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS) is an outpatient assessment program located on the Moses Campus of Montefiore Medical Center.
The NAS serves a heterogeneous group of children (ages five and up), adolescents, adults, and older adults with a variety of conditions, including but not limited to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, mild cognitive impairment, stroke, traumatic brain injury/concussion, Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, anoxic brain injury, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder, systemic lupus erythematosus, sickle cell disease, brain tumors and other types of cancers associated with cognitive changes (e.g., leukemia and breast cancer treatments), ruptured aneurysms/arteriovenous malformations, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and specific learning disorders.
What is Clinical Neuropsychology?
Clinical neuropsychology is a specialty of psychology that focuses on the relationship between the brain and behavior. It is based on the scientific study of human cognition (i.e., thinking), emotion, and behavior as it relates to normal and abnormal brain functioning. A clinical neuropsychologist has a doctoral degree in psychology, with at least two years of advanced training and experience in the science and practice of neuropsychology.
What is a Neuropsychological Evaluation?
A neuropsychological evaluation is an assessment of how one’s brain functions, which indirectly yields information about the structural and functional integrity of the brain. The neuropsychological evaluation involves an interview and the administration of objective tests. The tests are typically pencil-and-paper type tests.
Neuropsychological tests are standardized, meaning that they are given in the same manner to all patients and scored in a similar manner time after time. An individual’s scores on tests are interpreted by comparing their score to that of healthy individuals of a similar demographic background (e.g., age, education, gender, and/or ethnic background) and to expected levels of functioning. In this way, a neuropsychologist can determine whether one’s performance on any given task represents a strength or weakness. Although individual scores are important, the neuropsychologist looks at all of the data from the evaluation to determine a pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses and, in turn, to understand more about how the brain is functioning. The results of neuropsychological testing can also be used to assist with differential diagnosis and inform treatment recommendations.
Neuropsychological tests evaluate functioning in a number of areas, including attention, speed of information processing, memory, language, visuospatial perception, executive functioning (e.g., planning, organization, abstraction, conceptualization), academic functioning, and emotional/psychological functioning. The areas addressed in an individual’s evaluation are determined by the referral question (what the referring doctor and patient wants to know), patient’s complaints and symptoms, and observations made during interview and test administration.
A complete evaluation generally takes between three and five hours to complete, but can take up to eight hours, depending on the complexity of the issues to be addressed by the evaluation and the patient’s condition. Occasionally, it is necessary to complete the evaluation over two or more sessions.
Our Team
Bryan Freilich, Psy.D., ABPP-CN
Director, Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS)
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Nicole Feirsen, Ph.D
Assistant Director, Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS)
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Elyssa Scharaga, Ph.D
Assistant Director, Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS)
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Jodi Uderman, Ph.D
Assistant Director, Neuropsychology Assessment Service (NAS)
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Clinical Research
Through their academic appointments at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, our staff members are involved in a number of clinical research studies designed to advance our understanding of disorders that affect cognitive and emotional functioning in patients across the lifespan. One of the projects we are currently working on is the development and validation of a cognitive screening test called the Attention, Memory, and Frontal Abilities Screening Test (AMFAST). For more information about the AMFAST, please click here.
Contact Us
For additional information or to schedule an appointment, please call:
Montefiore Medical Center
Neuropsychology Assessment Service
3307 Bainbridge Avenue
Bronx, NY 10467
(718) 653-4859
