New protocol for subjective assessment of neurocognitive function in paediatrics

Abstract

Introduction and aim of work Neurocognitive testing, also known as neuropsychological testing, is a performance-based method to assess cognitive functioning by comprehensive evaluation of the patient's cognitive status by specific neurologic domains ( attention, memory , judgement ,evaluation, reasoning ,computation, problem solving , decision making, comprehension and production of language(Butler et al,2013). There are many protocols for neurocognitive assessment in paediatrics; we developed new protocol for evaluation of neurocognitive function of paediatric group suitable for healthy and unhealthy children in Egyptian children. The validity and specificity were studied by application the protocol into two groups: one normal kids and the others with NHL treated with intrathecal methotrexate(Dietrich,2010).. Patients and methods: the first step is to design the protocol for subjective evaluation of neurocognitive function. Second step is applying the protocol on two groups. The group one included 25 NHL(Non Hodgkin Lymphoma) treated children and the group two includes 10 children as controls. The third step to correlate the results with the result of standered test (StandfordBinet test 4th editions). Result The design protocol is effective to evaluate the neurocognitive function and assess the minimal change as it seen obvious in the difference between the groups and the correlation with the result of StandfordBinet test.