Introduction

Abstract

Because of the vagueness surrounding the term brain damage, it is necessary at the outset to define the population to which this book may have some application. Although it is usual to speak of the brain-damaged patient in a general way, the conditions referred to cover a variety of specific disorders. In this book we will be discussing only individuals who become brain-damaged as adults. We will be addressing ourselves specifically to adults who have sustained demonstrable, structural brain damage. Those conditions in which brain dysfunction is a possible etiological agent, such as a number of functional psychiatric disorders, will not be considered. Thus the entire topic of mental retardation and early life brain damage will not be treated here, nor the many problems associated with minimal brain damage syndromes in school age children. Modern psychiatric thinking has tended to blur the distinction between the so-called functional and organic disorders (cf. Shagass, Gershon, & Friedhoff, 1977), but we would adhere to the view that the patient with structural brain damage continues to present relatively unique assessment and treatment problems.