Case Study

Case Presentation

Client Name: Matt

Age: 38 years

Gender: Male

Marital Status: -

Home/living situation: Average

# of children/pets: No

Work/vocation/job situation: Clerk at grocery shop

Race: White

DSMIV-Diagnosis/Presenting Problem: ADHD

Physical condition(s)/Illness: Headaches, shakiness and lightheadedness

Verbal/non-verbal: -

Intelligence/IQ: Score is 89

Target behavior(s): -

Antecedent Stimuli/Cues: Lack of concentration while doing work, due to the disturbance of external stimuli (in this case music).

Consequences which are Maintaining Behavior/Function of the Behavior:

Client preferences: Thoughts regarding music, and he starts recalling and singing song.

Reinforcers/Punishers for target behaviors: Shopkeeper.

Discussion

Psychologist or behavior analyst play a vital role in the promotion of public health. Traditionally, psycholgist focus on altering the behavior of the individual patient as well as on the prevention of disease for promoting health. The purpose of behavior analysis encompasses several aspects that give a holistic insight into this profession. These include promoting and maintaining health, caring for individuals with compromised health, assisting recovery, facilitating independence, meeting needs and improving well being. Furthermore, the practice of this profession or any profession linked with the provision of health care maintains specific prerequisites, among which education and knowledge of applying learned concepts is necessary. The skills of behavior analyst must aptly provide direct patient care. They must possess a portfolio of numerous skills including leadership skills, experience, empowering patients, communication skills, teamwork and compassion.

Similarly behavior analyst play a vital role in the assessment of mental disorder. As a behavior analyst the major goal of cognitive assessment are the determination of Matt's cognitive abilities. Then as a health care practitioner I have to recognize initially about the present impairment in cognitive functioning. Then I will monitor the cognitive response of Matt with different treatments.

Undiagnosed cognitive impairment is linked with greater mortality and mobidity. Assessment of cognitive impairment is the basis of early diagnosis and prompt impairment treatment. Cognitive functioning means the processes by which a person registers, perceives, uses, stores and retrieves information. These are the following conditions due to which the conitive functoning could be impaired that are: Dementia; it is a cognitive deterioration syndrome that involves impairment of memory and disturbance in minimum one cognitive function (like apraxia, aphasia, or agnosia that occurs due to the alteration in behavior and function) (3). Delirium is a consciousness disturbance with disorganized thinking and impaired attention that develops rapidly. Evidence of an underlying medical or physiologic condition is present generally. Depression is defined as a syndrome of either loss of interest or depressed mood or pleasure in most activities of the day. These symptoms show a change from routine functioning for the person and have been present for minimum two weeks.

Assessment of Cognitive Functioning

Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is used for screening or monitoring cognitive function instrument; although, performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination is adversely affected by age, education, verbal ability and language. The Mini-Mental State Examination is also criticized for tits long procedure for the administeration and scoring.

Mini-Cog (Borson, Scanlan, Watanabe, et al., 2005) or Sweet 16 (Fong et al., 2010) is also used effectively for screening and monitoring can also be used to screen and monitor cognitive function; is not adversely influenced by ...