Dementia is one of the most devastating diagnoses a patient and family can receive. It is a major cause of disability and dependency among older people worldwide, and nearly 10 million new cases are diagnosed globally each year. Early screening of dementia symptoms in older adults is critical to ensure timely treatment and intervention—and to minimize the impact on the patient and family.
PAR’s new neuropsychological assessment instrument, the Older Adult Cognitive Screener (OACS), will help you serve your older patients and their families with quicker answers. An all-digital informant rating scale, the OACS is designed for early screening of dementia symptoms for patients ages 55–90 years and will assist with follow-up determinations, including initiating or referring your clients for comprehensive diagnostic testing. Results are based on the observations and knowledge of a reliable caregiver, family member, or friend (e.g., spouse or home health care worker).
How does the OACS help you screen for neurocognitive impairments?
1. Administration and scoring are rapid and reliable.
Raters can complete the items in only 5–10 minutes online, and scoring is instant via PARiConnect. Change Reports are available to help you track change over time.
2. The OACS is entirely digital, ideal for telehealth and social distancing.
Another significant advantage of the OACS is its digital format, which aligns well with today’s telehealth models and enables you to continue testing even when social distancing is required. Plus, because the OACS is administered through PARiConnect, data are easily exported into an electronic medical record (EMR) system.
Related article: SPEAKING MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE MAY DELAY ONSET OF DEMENTIA
3. Items map onto DSM-5 domains.
The OACS is the only neurocognitive screener with items that map directly onto the six principal domains of neurocognitive function identified in the DSM-5®: executive function, complex attention, language, perceptual–motor, social cognition, and learning and memory. An additional item addresses activities of daily living (ADLs) to help you determine how the patient performs common physical tasks.
Why should I use the OACS?
Designed to be used in medical settings by primary care and specialty physicians, the OACS can also be administered and scored appropriately by nursing staff and properly trained clerical staff. It is also useful for clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, and others who treat older adults on a clinical basis in a variety of mental health settings, including nursing homes and community mental health centers.
It was developed by trusted authors Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, and Erin D. Bigler, PhD, to provide a rapid, cost-effective, and valid means of screening older adults for cognitive dysfunction.
To learn more or to order, visit parinc.com/OACS or call PAR Customer Support at 1.800.331.8378.
This week’s blog was written by Lindsey O’Brennan, PhD, a licensed psychologist and owner of Morningstar Wellness.
In March 2020, the majority of Americans were faced with the stressful and uncomfortable task of transitioning work to be entirely remote. No more were the days of enduring the rush hour commute or booking flights for work conferences. Instead we spent our energy buying and learning new online platforms and software. The titles of mom and dad were suddenly synonymous with teacher, coach, and classmate. We carved out space for a home office and, if possible, a sense of privacy from family members (our new coworkers). The after work happy hours were replaced with Netflix binging (thank you “Tiger King” and “Ozark” for your life lessons!), learning how to make sourdough bread, or taking our dogs for yet another walk to get out of the house.
The initial phase of lockdown was difficult on even the best of days. Yet there was a sense of unity during those early months. I felt closer to my neighbors who now became the only other people I physically saw beside my immediate family. I relished our neighborhood walks and time spent in the backyard as a family. I frequently saw “We’re in this together” and “Kindness matters” signs in the windows of closed-up shops or spray painted along my neighborhood streets. There was a sense of hope that America was going to get through this. There was also an underlying optimism that we would be waving goodbye to COVID by summer.
Well hindsight is 2020 (not sure that saying holds up anymore). Despite our desires for a quick vaccine, COVID remained ever steady in our world through the summer and fall months. However, noticeable things were changing across the nation in terms of the reopening of businesses and school districts and the growing need for mental health services.
Related Article: ASSESS THE IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC ON KIDS
As a psychologist who works both in private practice and with local school districts, I had to decide how and when I was going to return to work following quarantine. During the initial lockdown, I moved my entire business over to telehealth. Because of this, about 25% of my clients—particularly school-aged clients—decided to take a break from therapy until they could be in-person again. I frequently heard from parents that kids were “simply Zoom-ed out” and didn’t want to stare at a computer screen while yet another adult talked to them. I also noticed I was not bringing my best self into the telehealth therapy sessions. I would catch myself glancing down at the clock more frequently. I hated knowing that my inbox was one click away from the telehealth browser window, thus requiring me to mentally refocus more often.
Part of what I love so much about therapy is creating a sacred space for the client where they can unload their emotional baggage. But with telehealth, we did not share the same physical space, so the distractions of the real world felt ever present for me and my clients. It came to a point where for me, the benefits of telehealth (ease, safety, convenience) were not outweighing the risk of contracting COVID-19. My focus was then to develop a plan for how I could safely offer therapy to clients in person and via telehealth depending on their needs and comfort level.
Related Article: E-MANUALS: CONVENIENT DIGITAL TOOLS TO HELP YOU
I want to point out that my decision to return to my office full-time was a personal one. I’ve talked with a multitude of colleagues—some of whom returned to their office months before me and others who continue to solely provide telehealth services. No matter where you land on the spectrum of remote versus in-person work, here is some food for thought on how to navigate the path to a new normal:
Related article: Read Dr. O’Brennan’s blog on her initial shift to telehealth services.
As children return to school, many may exhibit signs of anxiety and stress. Your job is to find out whether these are existing issues or whether they are related to the pandemic and quarantine.
Help is here.
The Pandemic Anxiety Screener for Students–12 (PASS-12) is a 12-item checklist developed by FAR, FAM, and FAW author Steven G. Feifer, DEd, designed specifically to evaluate the impact of a pandemic on a child’s school-based functioning.
Related article: OUR STORIES: STARTING THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR
A parent rating form, it allows you to rate the severity of anxiety symptoms specific to the pandemic and quarantine and provides information to help school professionals make important decisions.
To learn more or order, visit parinc.com/PASS-12.
Editor's note: This article refers to a promotion that has expired.
Serving your clients and students is getting a little easier.
e-Manuals—downloadable digital versions of PAR professional manuals—are becoming more and more useful as having remote access to files is increasingly necessary for you to do your job efficiently.
In our uncertain times, you can’t always rely on paper. e-Manuals allow for greater flexibility in how you access important product information.
In addition to the nearly 100 e-Manuals previously available, 13 new e-Manuals can now be purchased and downloaded for your digital tool kit:
CAS (Children’s Aggression Scale) e-Manual
CAS (College Adjustment Scales) e-Manual
CNNS e-Manual
COVR e-Manual
CPCI e-Manual
CTI e-Manual
PAI-CS Module e-Manual
PAI Public Safety Selection Report e-Manual
PDDBI-SV e-Manual
RADS-2:SF e-Manual
SIQ e-Manual
SOPA e-Manual
TSCC/TSCYC Screening Form Technical Paper e-Manual
And, over the next several months, we’ll release dozens more.
Related article: REMOTE ADMINISTRATION FOR THE IGT2 AND WCST!
The best part? If you’ve already purchased a print professional manual for which we carry an e-Manual equivalent, we’ll provide that e-Manual to you at no charge, for a limited time. Simply call us at 1.800.331.8378 to request your free download.
Keep checking parinc.com as we add more e-Manuals to our lineup, or call our Customer Support team at 1.800.331.8378 for more information.
PAR is proud to announce our latest innovation, a product designed so you can more efficiently serve those you help. ChecKIT on PARiConnect offers you a centralized location for brief, commonly used mental health checklists that offers so much more! ChecKIT allows you to save repeated administrations in one location and regularly track client symptoms across therapy sessions.
Flexible purchase model
Buy multiple units of checklists up front, but you don’t need to decide which checklists you want to use until you are ready to administer them.
Score reports and technical papers
After administration, receive a score report that offers interpretive text that can be easily incorporated into your professional reports. You can also export data to have a ready-to-analyze dataset to facilitate research. Furthermore, each ChecKIT product offers a complimentary technical paper that explains the development behind the measure.
Check back often
We are constantly expanding the ChecKIT product family so you can have a variety of tools that work for you!
Check out ChecKIT today!
Related article: Screening for trauma is more important than ever
Whether you want a deeper understanding of a favorite product or want a sneak peek into a test you are considering, the interactive courses, recorded webinars, video tutorials, and supplemental materials on the PAR Training Portal give you greater insight into some of our most popular products.
The PAR Training Portal is a free, on-demand resource available 24/7. Some of our newest offerings include:
Log in today to see what’s new! Use your parinc.com username and password.
Mark Ruiz, PhD, ABPP, is a licensed psychologist at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and coauthor of the Personality Assessment Inventory Interpretive Report for Correctional Settings (PAI-CS). He specializes in competency to stand trial, mental state at the time of offense, violence and sexual recidivism risk assessment, and sentencing mitigation. In today’s blog, PAR Project Director Sierra Iwanicki, PhD, talks to him about the use of the Personality Assessment Inventory™ (PAI®) in forensic evaluations, how he became drawn to the field, and where he thinks forensic psychology is going in the future.
How did you become involved in forensic evaluations?
It happened by accident. During my undergraduate and graduate training, I had brief experiences working with juvenile and adult offenders. I took some workshops about competency and sanity evaluations through the University of South Florida. Following the workshops, some opportunities to do court-ordered evaluations opened in the county I was in and it took off from there.
Why is it helpful to include a measure of personality in these evaluations?
Psychological testing that can address multiple clinical issues in an objective manner adds credibility to any evaluation. Judges, juries, and law enforcement often are not reassured when a clinician makes an opinion based solely on the words that came out of the client’s mouth. “Because he told me so” is not typically a persuasive argument. Psychological testing backed by science tends to be well received in the court of law.
Describe your use of the PAI in forensic evaluations.
I typically use the PAI in risk assessment and sentencing mitigation evaluations. The evidence-based validity scales are important for gauging the client’s approach to the evaluation. The PAI’s broad coverage of mental health and substance use disorders is also helpful in clarifying the diagnostic picture. Additionally, the well-validated Antisocial Features (ANT) and Aggression (AGG) scales are central to opinions of future risk for reoffending and violence.
What makes the PAI unique from other instruments?
The PAI’s ability to measure personality pathology and substance use independently is critical in many forensic evaluations. The growing body of research validating the use of various PAI scales, most notably Negative Impression Management (NIM) and Antisocial Features (ANT), is helpful in generating persuasive opinions in the forensic setting.
How do you see the field of forensic psychology changing in the next 10 years?
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an emphasis on telehealth. As such, technologies to ensure the availability and integrity of psychological testing will be very important. Forensic clinicians who typically work in correctional or criminal justice settings are hampered by a lack of access to facilities and an inability to do face-to-face encounters due to the infection control protocols in place. Even in situations where access is available, many clients do not have the know-how or computer access to take a psychological test remotely. Having the capacity to administer tests via telehealth and to ensure the validity of the results will be crucial for forensic psychology.
What advice would you give to anyone interested in pursuing forensic psychology?
Forensic psychology is like scotch—you must have a taste for it. Attorneys play by a different set of rules than mental health professionals, with the main goal of the legal system being to sharpen conflict to resolve a particular issue. Unconditional positive regard is not often practiced in the courtroom. Psychologists are not typically comfortable with the baseline level of hostility and conflict present in the courtroom. However, the role of the legal system is to resolve conflicts in pursuit of justice; any psychologist interested in stepping into that forum should be ready for the culture that comes with it.
What is one thing we can glean from psychological science to improve mental health outcomes during the current collective pandemic crisis?
I think psychology has emphasized the importance of human connection, something that has taken a big hit with the social distancing and protective protocols that come with our response to the pandemic. Efforts to maintain connections during this time are more crucial than ever, particularly for the elderly and for vulnerable populations that have been isolated for extended periods of time.
Related article: Mendeley bibliographies available for the PAI!
Students spend nearly 60% of their school day engaged in the process of written expression. Deficits in the writing process can wreak havoc on students’ education. The Feifer Assessment of Writing (FAW) examines the underlying processes that support proficient written language skills. In addition to identifying the possibility of dysgraphia, the FAW is able to determine the specific subtype of dysgraphia. And now, clinicians can save time and effort by scoring the FAW on PARiConnect.
What is the FAW?
The Feifer Assessment of Writing (FAW) is a diagnostic achievement test designed to examine the underlying cognitive, motoric, and linguistic processes that support proficient written language skills.
It is the third and final member of the Feifer family of diagnostic achievement test batteries, joining the Feifer Assessment of Reading (FAR) and the Feifer Assessment of Mathematics (FAM).
Results of the FAW help specify, from a neuropsychological perspective, exactly why a student struggles with written language so clinicians can develop appropriate, customized interventions. It also provides additional information about a student’s writing skills that allow users to dig deeper into a student’s abilities.
A screening form is also available, ideal for identifying children at risk for developmental dysgraphia within a multitiered system of support service delivery model.
Scoring now available on PARiConnect
PARiConnect automatically provides scores and profiles based on response data from a paper-and-pencil assessment of the FAW. Standard scores, index standard scores, percentile ranks, and score ranges are generated based on raw score inputs. PARiConnect calculates index and subtest discrepancy scores and their base rates and provides some interpretive text to help clinicians plan appropriate next steps. A reliable change report can be generated if the FAW has been administered to the same examinee more than once.
Learn more!
One of PAR’s core values is to give back to the community, and our dedicated staff provide time and resources to a variety of causes. This blog is one in a series about what drew our staff members to become involved with various charities. Today’s blog focuses on David Houser’s relationship with Metropolitan Ministries.
When David Houser, PAR’s director of sales, began heading up PAR’s involvement with Metropolitan Ministries several years ago, he knew this local, grassroots community nonprofit served struggling and homeless families throughout Tampa Bay. However, there is no way he ever could have expected the increase in need they would see once the pandemic hit.
“Food insecurity in this country is something that shouldn’t even be an issue,” said David, who leads the PAR team in food and gift drives throughout the year. “I’ve always had an interest in feeding people, taking care of that basic need, and making sure people have that ability to thrive.”
In 2019, Metropolitan Ministries served nearly 2 million meals and helped nearly 20,000 families with its support services. The organization provides food services, housing programs, family support services, and beyond. Since March, however, demand has skyrocketed with requests up 75% over the prior year—with the majority of the increase in requests coming from first-time recipients.
“That’s pretty dramatic when you talk about someone who has never needed assistance before,” said David, who normally leads a summer food drive. Knowing that PAR staff could not be in person this year to bring in items to help those in need, he decided instead to host a virtual fundraising drive to help the organization meet the demand it was seeing. PAR staff were able to raise more than $3,600 to donate to Metropolitan Ministries general fund, which they can use for their facilities, to fund programs, expand meal service, or to house the 113 families who live on their campus.
“They are not just a food bank,” said David, explaining why he identifies so strongly with Metropolitan Ministries vision. “They have people living on campus. They offer programs. They want to sustain the whole person and get them back on their feet.”
To learn more about Metropolitan Ministries and how you can get involved in helping their cause, visit their website.
With a global pandemic, remote learning in many areas, and increased isolation from friends and family, it’s more important than ever to screen students for exposure to trauma and related symptoms this school year.
Symptoms of trauma include:
Trauma is widespread
View our infographic to learn more about how trauma affects children – click here to view.
Trauma can result from any type of adverse childhood experience (ACE) including physical abuse, substance abuse, divorce, witnessing violence, and certainly a global pandemic and ongoing quarantine. More than two thirds of children report at least one traumatic event by the age of 16 years.
Trauma can affect learning
No matter the cause of your students’ trauma, the effects can have a real impact on their academic success. Classroom problems like behavioral issues, difficulty focusing, and disengagement from social activities can prevent them from learning and succeeding in school.
Screen for trauma to help children sooner
The Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children Screening Form (TSCC-SF) and Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children Screening Form (TSCYC-SF) now offer online administration and scoring via PARiConnect to help you connect with your students in the classroom—or remotely—and determine if they need help.
In just 5 minutes, the TSCC-SF (for ages 8-17 years) and TSCYC-SF (for ages 3-12 years) indicate whether a child or youth is at risk for clinically significant psychological disturbance so you can determine if follow-up evaluation and treatment are needed. These important tools support the trauma-informed care approach, and convenient scoring on PARiConnect provides the information you need in minutes.