Cognitive function is the ability of a person to process thoughts. Cognition basically refers to memory, speech, reading comprehension and ability to learn something new.
A cognitive assessment is a test administered by a neurologist, mental health professional, or an educationist to determine an individual’s level of cognitive function.
In case of healthy individuals, their brain has capability for learning new skills in speech, understanding a language, or memorizing things and ability to develop personal thoughts about the world. But, factors such as aging and diseases affect cognitive function of a person over time, leading to problems like memory loss, difficulty in finding right words while talking to people or writing something. Capacity to learn new things slows down with the age or prolonged illness.
A cognitive assessment involves various tests that are conducted for measuring cognitive function of a person. The person is asked to perform a series of tasks that need cognitive skills to accomplish. The assessment is split into several sections to test abilities like understanding language, delivering speech and so forth. Each section of assessment is scored separately and the results are compared with rubric of cognitive performance.
A medical professional will perform assessment if a person is experiencing cognitive impairment as a result of a stroke or brain injury or suspected intellectual disability of childhood. Pediatricians and neurologists perform cognitive assessment tests to check their suspect patients and to establish a baseline as a reference for comparison in future.
Cognitive assessment is also carried out in management of mental illness by conducting tests in the beginning of treatment and during course of it to check how the patient is responding to medication.
Source by John Jim Dsoza