Assessment of attention deficits in traumatically brain-injured patients : limitations of a computerized continuous attention test.

dc.contributor.authorSawchyn, James Matthewen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-15T18:20:32Z
dc.date.available2024-08-15T18:20:32Z
dc.date.copyright1996en_US
dc.date.issued1996
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Psychology
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractThe primary aim of this study was to examine the clinical diagnostic utility of the Seidel Continuous Attention Test (SCAT) in adults following mild to moderate brain injury. A secondary aim was to determine whether differential performance within conditions of the SCAT related to characteristics of attention such as impulsivity, inattention, or ability to sustain performance. Additionally, an auditory distraction component was incorporated into the original version of the SCA 1 to determine if simple distraction would influence performance in the brain-injured group. Eleven brain-injured patients were compared to age- and education-matched controls on SCAT performance. Measures of response time and response, time variability reflected performance differences between the clinical and control groups, and also identified differences between mildly and moderately neuropsychologically impaired clinical subjects. Response omissions and commissions were generally not useful in distinguishing between clinical and control subjects, with the exception of 3 clinical subjects. There was little difference in responding to a simple target ("X") compared to responding to a: more complex target ("X" preceded by an "A") and no effect of simple auditory distraction. Several clinical subjects appeared to demonstrate a deterioration of performance over time. It was concluded that, while attention tasks such as the SCAT may be useful in detecting deficits in prolonged attentional performance in more seriously impaired adult patients. that the relative insensitivity, and the length of the task makes it unsuitable for general clinical use. The relationship to current theories of attention is also discussed.
dc.format.extent99 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/19611
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleAssessment of attention deficits in traumatically brain-injured patients : limitations of a computerized continuous attention test.en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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