Neurol Rehabil 2015; 21 (6): 327-329                                                                     SCHWERPUNKTTHEMA

Kurt Goldstein’s innovative approach of neuropsychological assessment

P. Eling

Dep’t of Psychology, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract
Der When Kurt Goldstein was asked in 1916 to set up and organize a rehabilitation clinic for braininjured soldiers in Frankfurt am Main, he developed his full talent as a clinical neurologist with a great interest in his patients and the philosophical and psychological background of his work. This project stimulated him to introduce significant innovations in all aspects of his work. In this essay, I will highlight several of these, in particular with respect to the assessment procedures he developed together with the psychologist Adhémar Gelb. Goldstein developed a neuropsychological test battery, used for screening various cognitive domains and motor functioning. The screening battery was also designed for providing suggestion for areas of rehabilitation. Moreover, Goldstein already distinguished between laboratory tests and ›ecologically valid‹ procedures, for which he used the terms ›lebensfremd‹ and ›lebenswahr‹. He emphasized that one should observe how a patient performs a task, rather than rely on objective scores. Finally, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test is derived from the sorting tasks Goldstein and Gelb used to analyze the concrete and abstract attitude of patients. This all happened long before neuropsychological assessment became fashionable in the 1960’s illustrating that Goldstein clearly was a significant innovator in the area of neuropsychological assessment.
Keywords: Kurt Goldstein, neuropsychology, assessment, ecological validity, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

© Hippocampus Verlag 2015

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