Leader: Professor Jennie Ponsford

Offered

Clayton First semester 2008 (Day)
Clayton Second semester 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

Students will develop an understanding of strategies used to manage neuropsychologically impaired individuals and will learn how to assess the efficacy of techniques used to rehabilitation and management. Participants will receive information from other allied health professional, rehabilitative approaches used by these professions and discuss how a multidisciplinary approach can be used to provide substantial benefits to the brain-injured individual.

Objectives

This unit aims to equip students with the conceptual information necessary for them to work effectively in a rehabilitation setting.
On completion of the unit students will:

1. have acquired a good understanding of current theories and models of recovery of brain function after neurological damage;
2. be familiar with recent research examining plasticity and reorganisation in the primate brain;
3. be informed about the current World Health Organisation (WHO) framework for conceptualising disability in terms of impairment of function, activity limitation and participation restriction;
4. know how clinical neuropsychologists and other allied health professionals assess impairment following neurological damage;
5. be familiar with current rehabilitative interventions for specific neuropsychological disorders, and the methods commonly used to assess the effectiveness of these interventions;
6. be well informed about strategies used in the management of those with neurological damage.

Assessment

Take-home exercise (20%)
Case report (80%)