S20 Week 8 General meeting

Guest Speaker: Dr. Garcia, Clinical Neuropsychologist

• What is neuropsychology?
  • specialty field of study in psychology focused on the applied
• What do neuropsychologists do?
  • Neuropsychological Assessments 
    • how is your brain doing in terms of function, memory, coordination or muscle strength
    • after injury, disease
  • Individual Intervention
    • teaching a patient to relax themselves, not to grab the butt of the nurse,
      
    • Group Therapy
      • Do they function sexually/can they?
      • Hear from others with brain injury how they have coped
  • Family Therapy
    • How can you as a family member take care of another who had a stroke etc
    • Can involve just one member of the family or several
  • Cognitive Rehab
    • Once assessment is done you can come up with strategies to improve their brain function so they do not have to rely on external sources such as needing alerts for events
  • Teaching
    • Teaching about the biological foundation of behavior, conduct supervision at hospitals and teach students how to deal with patients
  • Training
    • Train psychology grad students to mold them into clinical neuropsychologist
    • Train healthcare workers such as those training to be occupational therapists, physical therapists, medical staff
  • Research
    • Potential Research q's
      • How are family caregivers impacted by brain injury or brain disease?
      • What happens to cognitive functioning after a concussion?
      • What happens to the brain after a stroke?
      • What can animals tell us about the risk for brain disease?
  • Personal Projects:
    • Health disparity research
  • What is it NOT:
    • Not a provider that prescribes medication
    • Nurse
    • Neurologist
    • Psychiatrist
    • Neurosurgeon
    • Allied health professional
    • Just concerned with overall health or is a health psychologist
  • There is no phd in clinical neuropsychology
    • It is a clinical psychology degree with a specialty in neuropsychology
  • Take necessary coursework
    • Biology
    • Biological psychology, brain and behavior
    • Brain neuroanatomy
    • Cognitive psychology
  • Get involved in undergrad research
  • Get some volunteer experience
  • Path to neuropsychology is about 6-7 years
    • Predoctoral studies 3-4 years
    • Predoctoral internship 1 year
    • Specialized clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral fellowship/residency 2 years
  • Average debt of applied psych programs
    • 100k