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Assessment of executive dysfunction following traumatic brain injury: Comparison of the BADS with other clinical neuropsychological measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2005

PAULEEN C. BENNETT
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
BEN ONG
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
JENNIE PONSFORD
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Traditional neuropsychological measures of executive dysfunction (ED) are widely believed to lack adequate sensitivity and selectivity. This may indicate that existing measures are poorly designed and constructed, although an alternative explanation is that executive cognition is multifactorial, such that its assessment necessarily requires administration of multiple measures. This possibility led to the development of a test battery, the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS). To investigate the sensitivity of the BADS to ED, it and various other measures of ED were administered to 64 persons who had sustained traumatic brain injury. The treating clinical neuropsychologist and occupational therapist for each participant also completed a behavioural rating scale, the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX). Four factors were found to underlie scores on the neuropsychological measures, but few tests were sufficiently powerful to make a significant unique contribution to predicting scores on the DEX. This confirms that multiple tests, drawn from both the BADS and other sources, may be necessary to detect ED in a clinical population. (JINS, 2005, 11, 606–613.)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2005 The International Neuropsychological Society

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