Assessment

Abstract

Assessment is an activity common to all professionals involved in caring for the neurologically brain-damaged adult. It involves evaluation of both the patient’s condition and relevant factors pertaining to it (for example physical features such as ‘hearing’, psychological ones such as ‘mood’, and social factors such as ‘home circumstances’). Each profession, however, tends to concentrate on different parameters — depending upon its area of expertise. The clinical psychologist, for example, will concentrate on the assessment of cognition, where the speech and language pathologist will be interested in communication. The nurse, because she is involved in care of the whole patient, takes a holistic approach, assessing a wide range of factors, medical and social (see Chapter 3 for a summary of the areas of expertise of each profession).

... each discipline thinks it understands exactly what all the other disciplines do.

Thomas 1988, p. 123.