I went to a rehab unit after my initial hospital admission. There, I was told I was to take a psychology test, and I thought this might be supportive for the shock and disorientation of the stroke. No way! What I had to endure was somethig similar to a not very good IQtest, which I found disturbing and demoralising. I have since spoken with other patients who were given it, and we all felt similarly distressed. Is this a usual practice. If so it needs changing pdq, as we are all unhappy enough after a stroke and donât need to be made to feel worse. I have since refused similar tests.
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Psychology, like medicine has the capacity to do good but can in some circumstances do great harm.
It sounds like what was probably originally a useful idea was being implemented really clumsily by someone not qualified to deal with such matters.
So are we all insane? or what? â lets say avoid it, thatâs a dead end.
I wouldnât take the poor assessment personally. They simply donât know what the heck they are doing.
Unfortunately there is so much about stroke and its after effects that is not handled correctly. There is a great deal of ignorance.
They have improved our prospects of survival.
However to have survived is not enough. Dealing with the after effects, including psychological changes, but also the vast range of change and disability, has a long way to go before anyone really knows what outcomes are possible or probable.
I believe those affected need to be a part of the learning process if we are to make advances.
best wishes to each and every one of you.
keep on keepin on
(Iâm into my fourth year since stroke and will be 79 later this year.)
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I couldnât agree more⌠knock you completely down while weâre injured with stroke. They should be taken to court ; oh wait, that would finish us off. Well I hope everyone tells them where to shove their test pdq
I used to be in the 97th percentile with IQ
Now Iâm average ; but my wife says Iâve still got it !
Roland
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Hello Dexster - welcome to the community and thank you for sharing your experience of the psychology test you had as part of your rehab.
For me, it is very disappointing to read that something that was offered to you was not helpful and worse still, other patients who took the same test felt the same way.
This is the first I am hearing of this test/therapy and I would be interested to hear from others who may also have received it.
My views are that this therapy is meant to benefit you and if it is not, we need to know why. Rather than dismissing it or refusing it, I wonder if it is worth exploring further to see what might have gone wrong and how it can be changed so it is actually beneficial to you and others who are offered it. I really think support is already not as good as it could be and to have been offered something and not find it useful should not be dismissed. To me this is a huge missed opportunity.
My advice would be to have a follow-up meeting and find out:
- what the objectives of the test are
- how it is meant to help/benefit the patient
- why you feel it did not benefit you
- why you found it disturbing and demoralising.
Have you discussed this with the consultants and explained how you feel?
Without feedback from patients, how would they know what they are doing is ineffective and indeed worse, disturbing and demoralising. I believe if there are so many patients with negative feedback they might be doing something wrong but unless they know they are doing something wrong how can they correct this?
I really think it is important for you to go back and address this as you may find with your feedback they might be able to do something to correct it and then it would benefit you as it is meant to. On the other hand if you just refuse to take it not only will you not benefit, but others will continue to receive the poor / bad therapy.
I would go further to what Bobbi says - I would want to know why I did not benefit from it. I actually would take it personally and want to know why something that is meant to help hasnât and what can be done about it.
Personally - yes. Understand why and if it is only you? You said there are others, so it is more than a personal issue.
OK, so how will they know they donât know what they are doing? Have you told them? Perhaps if you did and if they listened, maybe they may learn something they did not know.
If I didnât know what I was doing and someone thought that they thought I didnât know what I was doing, I would rather they told be so that I can do something about it. Or if I was doing it and was doing it right I could explain why it was right and why you might not have benefitted from it.
Without feedback, there can be no improvement.
Please do not waste an opportunity to get some treatment that could benefit you because of a negative experience without understanding why.
My apologies if I am âpreachingâ - absolutely not my intention, but I really do believe this could be a missed opportunity.
I wish you all the best.
Namaste|
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As someone affected by stroke you have a partial picture.
In the hours, days, months. years after stroke many donât feel like taking the establishment on. Simply getting from this day to the next is challenge enough.
So any means to gain feed back from the patient is a very necessary part of treatment when the professional doesnât always know best.
What Iâm saying is that I feel the onus is on the professionals to be checking that their system of care is functioning correctly. Patients cannot be expected to give accurate and timely reports.
I hope you understand that I want patients to have an active role but suggest they might not always be up to the task.
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I have not heard of psychological tests after stroke, I had a brief half hour chat with an OT and then email correspondence with a physio. Having gleaned the wide webbed world, it seems there are quite a few psychological tests administered after stroke, I wonder which one they gave you? And to what follow-up purpose, going forward, in rehab?
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There was hardly any recognition from my local TIA team that my psychological state could be affected, and certainly no testing. The national stroke guidelines say that such tests must be âapplied consistently across local stroke pathwaysâ so maybe itâs a postcode lottery thing, or maybe they just save the testing for people who are left with physical deficits. In my case I definitely needed help and it wasnât until I found this community that I started to rebuild, but once again was just a matter of luck and I would really prefer that quality of care depended on more than luck.
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It could depend on whether anyone qualified to administer a given procedure is available.
I do know that we have no permanent OTâs or Physios they are on short term contracts and are regularly replaced. There is, as a result, no continuity in what they do. This might vary from authority to authority.
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@Dexster i agree. The NHS needs retrained on stroke survivors. They have no idea what so ever. Good luck 
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I feel that such matters as motivation, depression, self awareness, stress and no doubt many other aspects of the operation of the psyche are very relevant to those directly and indirectly affected by a stroke incident.
So yes these things should be studied. Maybe these questionnaires are a preliminary to finding out exactly what does go on.
A particular treatment cannot be begun until some idea of what is involved has been established.
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Thank you all for your replies. Like Pando I was and think I still am in the 97th percentile. I was given no opportunity to provide feedback, even when I robustly refused any more tests - youâd think someone would have asked why. The consultantâs take was to offer me happy pills - he was big on tranx and sleeping pills, and I didnât feel either would be of benefit. I didnât need to be placid, and the ward was too noisy for easy sleep. When I refused more psycho sessions, the psych practitioner took the trouble to tell me how many similar jobs sheâd had in Industry, so I imagine she was highly qualified, but certainly not in people skills.
I would not like to be judged on the results of tests like these, especially as they had no way of knowing what I was like before. Apparently I failed the memory test Iâm in my 70s, had just had a severe trauma, and am the absent-minded professor type, why was it important that I remembered a random address quoted at me while being shown a picture of a rhinocerous and being asked what it was. Why couldnât someone sensible just have spoken with me. By the way, as I can only type with one hand, I canât do question marks, hence the lack. The test was apparently for my âteamâ to decide how best to treat me, so why wasnât I invited to give feedback. Being left to feel so unhappy isnât helpful for recovery. Every patient I discussed this with felt similarly..
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Good morning from snowy Norfolk! The day after my stroke I had a Cognitive test which as I understood was to see if my brain had been affected by the brain bleed. It consisted of questions such as who is the Prime Minister, date, counting backwards, finishing a scentence, remembering an address etc etc. No it wasnt a psychology test but even if it had been I really cant see a problem. Obviously you cant be tested before the stroke so no there is no way of comparing the results but surely any type of test to discover if your brain has been affected is worth doing. I didnât feel I was hassled during my test and was quite relaxed about it and just answered the questions. Maybe I was lucky with the lady who did the test. Just my opinion!
.
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A funny little aside on IQ tests, they have done studies where people who initially performed average IQ results actually achieved above average results when paid to do it.
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Sorry if I am missing something here, but what is stopping you from discussing what you are sharing with this forum with the consultant and/or your team?
Just because you were not invited, does not mean you were denied the opportunity? Clearly you feel strongly about this and I am unclear why you feel you cannot talk to your âteamâ about this. After all they are using the information they are gathering to come up with your care plan and you not giving feedback or questioning their approach means you will not get the care that you would like because the care they think you need is the care they will give.
Itâs in your hands - you have every right to talk to your consultants, ask questions, express your views and tell them what you would like and how you would like to be treated.
If nothing else, just show them the posts you have posted on here and let them know how you feel !!!
In my view this is where you are going wrong - why are you talking amongst yourselves? Surely you should be talking to the care team - the MDT or whoever it is that is planning your care. Talking amongst yourselves and posting on this forum is not going to get the message to the consultants - only you can do that and you should either as individuals or as a team make a point of getting this message across if you feel as passionately as you do.
Wishing you all successful recoveries however you choose to do it 
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I didnât have a psychology test but did have a cognitive one after my stroke. I did quite well at it but then I didnât have an issue with anything I already knew it was just learning new stuff that I had a problem with.
Perhaps you could write to the stroke team or mention at any follow up you have how it made you feel. It may be the way it was done rather than an issue with the test.
Best wishes
Ann
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Hello @Dexster i also went to a rehab hospital where my cognition was tested by an aptitude IQ type test and I was told my cognition was in tact but I had impulse control issues,but thatâs me pre-stroke I often reacted without considering the consequences!
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The tests are set to test the various parts of the brainâs functions which control say, problem solving abilities, yes memory too, emotions, cognitive and mood assessment, speach, reading ability, orientation, language, etc etc etc. These help give the your medical team a better picture of what the damage is, where it is, and so what areas your are likely to need more help withâŚother than the more visibly obvious ones like arm and leg function.
So even though you may feel these questionnaires are an insult, you are actually doing yourself no favours by refusing them. Itâs just a pity they didnât explain the purpose of them to you at the time, as it might have been beneficial to you.
Lorraine
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I still have impulse issues from brain damage. This is made more acute from my childhood OCD resurfacing.
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The only test I had was having to walk to the kitchen and make a cup of tea. Seeing if I could remember how to do it.
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Well done Lorraine - thank you.
Excellent response - you explained this much better than my clumsy efforts
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