SPECIAL ARTICLE   Free access

Europa Medicophysica 1998 December;34(4):221-8

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The neuropsychological rehabilitator: who are you? Neuropsychological rehabilitation calls for a specific professional qualification

Mazzucchi A. ¹, Parma M. ²

¹ Neuropsychological Neurorehabilitation Unit, Coordinator of the Diploma Course for Physical Therapists; ² Director of the School of Specialization in Neurology, Institute of Neurology University of Parma, Italy

The ­authors ­raise the ­issue of wheth­er it is ­still accept­able for reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the cog­ni­tive func­tions to be con­duct­ed by per­son­nel who ­lack spe­cial­ist train­ing in ­this ­area. In Italy, neu­ro­psy­cho­log­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion is ­still ­most ­often con­duct­ed by ­speech ther­a­pists ­trained ­only to ­treat ­speech dis­or­ders of the otorh­i­nol­a­ryn­go­log­ic ­type, or who, at ­most, ­have fol­lowed up ­their ­basic pro­fes­sion­al train­ing ­with intro­duc­to­ry or refresh­er cours­es on apha­sia, or some­times ­even by phys­i­cal ther­a­pists, psy­cho­mo­tor spe­cial­ists, edu­ca­tors, and occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists. The ­authors ­report on the ­results of a ­large-­scale sur­vey car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion ­with numer­ous neu­ro­psy­cho­log­i­sts and neu­ro­psy­cho­log­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tors ­from var­i­ous coun­tries of the European Communities, the United States, and oth­er coun­tries ­such as Israel, on ­what is hap­pen­ing in ­this ­area of reha­bil­i­ta­tion. The find­ings indi­cate ­that in ­most oth­er coun­tries neu­ro­psy­chol­o­gists occu­py elear­ly ­defined pro­fes­sion­al ­roles and in ­some coun­tries, ­such as the US and Israel, the neu­ro­psy­cho­log­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tor is an offi­cial pro­fes­sion­al ­role, for ­which ­there are spe­cif­ic uni­ver­sity cours­es. The ­authors con­clude by express­ing ­their ­hope ­that train­ing for neu­ro­psy­cho­log­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tors ­will ­soon be insti­tut­ed in Italy.