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Neuropsychological testing for CFS

Dr. Lange described how she conducts neuropsychological testing. First, she conducts a thorough clinical interview, which lasts about two hours. After the clinical interview, patients receive a full I.Q. assessment.

After the I.Q. testing, she tests for memory, attention, visual, language, and motor function, and executive function including multi-tasking and decision-making. Language, visual and motor function are almost never affected, but attention and executive function are usually abnormal and often relatively impaired.

Overall, she spends a total of 20-25 hours on a case, first reviewing the medical records, then spending time with the patient in the initial interview, then hours of testing and scoring with several more hours for writing up the report.

If a patient is required to redo the testing for Social Security, Dr. Lange uses a screening tool and taps into the specific issues previously identified to keep the time and costs down. That usually takes 3-4 hours.