Neuropsychological and Employment Implications: A Case Study of :: Medical Medicine Essays

Neuropsychological and Employment Implications: A Case Study of Whiting’s Patient Introduction: In 2005, the case study patient was involved in an automobile accident, where he sustained a head injury (Whiting, 2005). During a routine CT scan to check for possible brain damage, his physicians discovered an abnormal growth within his third (3rd) ventricle, in the approximate region of the frontal lobe. The physicians later determined that the growth was a colloid cyst, which is a collection of gelatinous material. On the advice of his physicians, the patient underwent neurosurgery to have the cyst removed, and recovered without any serious side effects. The diagnostics, treatment, and follow-up care associated with brain surgery are not performed in a vacuum; rather, the appropriate level of pre-operative and post-operative care relies on the deliberate cooperation of various parties. These parties include the neurologist, the neurosurgeon, the psychological and psychiatric professionals, the patient’s spouse, his or her employer, and the patient her or himself. The intent of this paper is to examine the roles of the neuropsychologist and the patient’s employers in the successful treatment, using the case study of the patient as a vehicle to conduct this analysis. This paper will begin with a brief overview of the frontal cortex and the 3rd ventricle, followed by the viewpoints of the neuropsychologist and the patient’s employer. The Frontal Cortex: A Brief Overview The brain’s outermost covering, the cerebral cortex, is partitioned into four lobes: the occipital lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe, and the frontal lobe. Although these lobes, as well as the rest of the brain, mutually innervate each other, each particular lobe is associated with different aspects of behavior and information processing (Drubach, 2000). The occipital cortex contains much of the neurons used in the processing of visual images, the temporal lobe processes many components used in the understanding of language, and the parietal lobe contains the primary somatosensory cortex, the cortical structure involved in the processing of touch sensations and muscle and joint data. (Kalat, 2001) Of interest to us is the frontal lobe. It extends from the central sulcus (a deep cortical groove extending along the coronal plane to both hemispheres of the brain) to the anterior limits of the brain. The two main divisions of the frontal lobe are the primary motor cortex and the pre-frontal cortex. The latter structure, the primary motor cortex, is responsible for the coordination of fine motor movements throughout different