The Benefits of a Baseline Cognitive Assessment
All of us bring a different repertoire of skills and abilities into our adult lives, and as we live our lives, connecting with others, going to school, working, and managing our day-to-day lives, we bring those inherent skills and abilities along. Although education and areas of interest can certainly make a difference in how our various skills emerge and develop, so can normal aging. Contrary to popular assumptions, however, not all cognitive skills decline over time as a result of normal aging, and how we spend our time and use our minds across our lifetimes does make a huge difference.
For all these reasons, age may or may not affect certain skills for certain people. As we gain in years and life experience, there are inevitably also changes in our health that can sometime affect our cognitive functioning. It is often very useful to know HOW MUCH an illness, progressive medical condition, or injury has affected our functioning, and this is where having had a baseline assessment can be very, very helpful. If a doctor or neuropsychologist has clear information about where a person WAS, it is much easier to see whether where a person IS at the moment is truly "AOK", or whether there are emerging difficulties that need attention.
All of us bring a different repertoire of skills and abilities into our adult lives, and as we live our lives, connecting with others, going to school, working, and managing our day-to-day lives, we bring those inherent skills and abilities along. Although education and areas of interest can certainly make a difference in how our various skills emerge and develop, so can normal aging. Contrary to popular assumptions, however, not all cognitive skills decline over time as a result of normal aging, and how we spend our time and use our minds across our lifetimes does make a huge difference.
For all these reasons, age may or may not affect certain skills for certain people. As we gain in years and life experience, there are inevitably also changes in our health that can sometime affect our cognitive functioning. It is often very useful to know HOW MUCH an illness, progressive medical condition, or injury has affected our functioning, and this is where having had a baseline assessment can be very, very helpful. If a doctor or neuropsychologist has clear information about where a person WAS, it is much easier to see whether where a person IS at the moment is truly "AOK", or whether there are emerging difficulties that need attention.