Test #3 Flashcards
Malingering
intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external incentives (work, criminal, money)
How is malingering distinct from somatoform disorder?
the physical symptoms are not intentionally feigned or produced and the incentive is not psychological
How is malingering distinct from factitious disorder?
the symptoms are not performed to assume the sick role, though behaviors are intentional
Definitional difficulties for malingering
- Somatoform/Factitious definitions do not target cognitive symptoms
- Definition requires judgment about internal states
- Determining relative weight of external incentive and sick role (external incentives must be absent)
Criteria for definite malingering
- presence of substantial external incentive
- evidence of negative response bias
- behaviors are not due to psychiatric, neurological, or developmental factors
Criteria for probable malingering
- presence of substantial external incentive
- two or more types of evidence from testing (excluding negative response bias)–or one from testing and one from self-report
- behaviors are not due to psychiatric, neurological or developmental factors
Cogniform Disorder
- cognitive complaints/ test performance is rare for the level of brain injury
- delayed onset of excessive cognitive complaints
- inconsistencies across scores/ repeated evaluations
- evidence of suboptimal effort
- condition: inconsistencies between performance in evaluation and other areas of life
Risk factors for extended recovery times following mild TBI
- premorbid psychiatric history
- severity of self-reported symptoms
- involvement in compensation seeking
- physical comorbidities
- concurrent PTSD/pain
- lower education
- income/ level of employment
incidence estimates of cogniform disorder/ extended recovery times for mTBI
1-50%
Malingering Designs: Simulation
- analogue design in which subjects are given instructions to feign, then are compared to normal and brain injured groups
- generalizability concerns.
- motivation/preparation of participants
- simulation malingering paradox
Simulation malingering paradox
ask people to comply with instructions to study people who don’t comply with instructions
Malingering Designs: Differential prevalence designs
- high & low base rate groups
- allow determination of average responses
- maybe good malingerers are still getting by
Malingering Designs: known group designs
- used when you have an identified group of malingerers
- how are they identified?
- maybe good malingerers are still getting by
Malingering Detection Strategies
Symptom validity testing
- Word Choice Effort Form (Wechsler)
- forced choice paradigm (ex. left vs right hand)
- TOMM
TOMM scores
45 questionable, 42-43 basically never seen, expect near 50
Gold standard for Malingering Detection Strategies
below chance
Rey 15-item test
- used to detect malingering
- is a poor measure
- 1,2,3, I, II,III,A,B, C,a,b,c, triangle, circle, square
Problems with Malingering Detection Strategies
- floor effect
- poor sensitivity (not catching fakers)
- poor specificity (identifying people who aren’t faking as fakers)
- ethics
Floor effects & the Rey 15-item test
- cut off is 7-9 items
- pattern of response failure
Floor effects and Malingering Detection Strategies
even people with known, moderate to severe injuries obtain correct scores
key component of a malingering measure
they should look more difficult than they are
Malingering: Embedded measures
- WAIS-IV
- CVLT-II
- Rarely Missed Index
WAIS-IV & Malingering
-low digit span (age corrected score
CVLT-II and Malingering
- low recognition
- low delayed forced choice
- sensitivity questionable for other CVLT scores
Rarely missed index & malingering
-WMS recognition items examined for frequency of misses
Performance curve
How does an individual’s pattern of responding change
what way to examine performance curve
response latencies
Response Latencies
examine the rate of change in response latencies in relation to task difficulty
Measure of response latency
dot counting task
dot counting task
- 25 dots on a page randomly spaced around –> count dots as fast as you can!
- does not work at all
Performance curve in malingerers
- tend to have a flatter slope with increasing complexity
- tend to respond more slowly to easy items and more quickly to difficult items than controls
Selecting a cognitive malingering measure
- Ease of use
- length of administration
- credibility of rationale
- apparent difficulty of measure
- coaching issues
- how easy is it to “beat” the test
Sample Malingering Measure (Reid’s)
-7 categories for possible difference, which range from easy to hard
what did the Sample Malingering Measure (Reid’s) take into consideration?
- floor effect
- missing easy categories while getting hard categories correct
- people should be faster on easy problems compared to hard problems adding total time spent on those problems
what principles did the Sample Malingering Measure (Reid’s) utilize?
- inconsistency within category
- symptom validity (e.g. total response time)
- total response time slope
Test Development the Sample Malingering Measure (Reid’s)
- developed cut scores to distinguish between malingerers and effortful test takers
- cut scores were not different between TBI & Controls
- made a decision tree
Malingering: Atypical Presentation
- unusual presentation (e.g. choosing up/down when told to choose left/right)
- not clinically validated (because they don’t occur frequently)
- autobiographical memory (hard for people to forget this stuff)
- primacy (recency) effect
Summary of malingering assessment
- use specific malingering measures
- evaluate patterns of performance on clinical measures
- look for unusual test patterns
- inconsistency of test scores within/across situations
- independent confirmation of abilities
cerebrovascular accident/ stroke basic info
- third leading cause of death in US
- incidence: 167,000 fatalities/ 700,000 cases
- death rates of declined in recent years
- more common in men
- women account for more than 1/2 deaths
risk factors for CVA
- hypertension
- increasing age
- tobacco use
- diabetes
- cholesterol
- cerebrovascular disease
Stroke
-a sudden loss of brain function caused by a blockage or rupture of a blood vessel to the brain, characterized by loss of muscular control, diminution or loss of sensation or consciousness, dizziness, slurred speech, or other symptoms that vary with the extent and severity of the damage to the brain
Transient Ischemic Attacks
- last less than 24 hours, often only minutes
- 50% resolve within 60 minutes
Two types of stroke
- Ischemic
- Hemorrhagic
Ischemic Stroke
- blockage of blood supply
- most common (88%)
- 4-5 minutes of blood stoppage is irreversible
Ischemic attack: causes
- build up of fat deposits on artery walls with fibrous tissue
- infarction occurs due to growth of blood particles and tissue overgrowth (embolism 20%)
- sudden blocking of an artery by clot or foreign material
Can you die from an Ischemic Stroke?
Yes; 9% fatal within 30 days, Thrombus (60-70%)
Hemorrhagic Stroke
-blood leaks from artery directly into brain
can you die from a hemorrhagic stroke?
37% fatal in 30 days
how dies hemorrhagic differ from ischemic?
- less lateralizing than ischemic
- more recovery than ischemic due to greater initial impairment
What happens to brain as a result of a hemorrhagic stroke?
- results in mass effects (can fix by relieving pressure)
- blood toxicity (can damage neurons but they can possibly recover)
what is the most common cause of a hemorrhagic stroke?
aneurysm
which is worse: hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke?
hemorrhagic stroke has a larger chance of fatality but you’re more likely to recover
aneurysm
a protrusion in a blood vessel that causes a weakness