BARBARA R. SOMMER, PENELOPE ZEIFERT and PHILIP WASSERSTEIN

1. The neuropsychology service provides diagnostic evaluations and treatment recommendations for individuals referred from inpatient medical units and from outpatient medical and psychiatric clinics at Stanford and elsewhere. The purpose of the service is to evaluate the extent of cerebral dysfunction and its effect on mental performance, behavior and emotions. Assessments typically include a clinical interview, as well as testing of intelligence, concentration, learning and memory, reasoning and other cognitive abilities relevant to the referral questions. When needed, personality measures such as the MMPI-2 or Beck Depression Inventory may also be included.

2. Since early 1997, Stanford's neuropsychology services have been consolidated in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences. In the past, medical units and clinics retained their own neuropsychologists, either on staff or as private consultants. Currently, because of rapid patient turn-over and a high utilization, only the inpatient psychiatry units retain a neuropsychology position. Patients from other units and clinics are now referred to the neuropsychology service based in neurology.

3. Staff PhD neuropsychologists are Daryl Thomander, Nell Riley, and Peter Karzmark. Zeifert serves as director of the service and also has a position on the inpatient medical psychiatry and geropsychiatry units. Two psychometricians, Monika Tucker and Christine Kim, assist with assessment procedures in the Neuropsychology Service.

4. Medicare and most HMOs and private insurance plans provide neuropsychology coverage.

5. The patients seen have a wide range of neurologic disorders, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, brain tumor, dementia, immune disorders and learning disabilities. Epilepsy and Parkinson's have traditionally been the most frequent referral type and ongoing research in conjunction with the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and the Department of Neurosurgery is under way with these two populations.

6. Philip Wasserstein graduated from medical school at Stanford in 1978. He completed his neurology residency at Stanford in 1982 and an EEG fellowship a year later before joining the full-time faculty as an assistant professor. In 1986 he was appointed director of the Neurology Clinic and subsequently he also became director of the Movement Disorders Clinic at Stanford. Since 1996, Wasserstein has practiced at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

Barbara R. Sommer, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, directs geriatric psychiatry at Stanford. She received her MD in 1979 from New York Medical College, Valhalla. She completed her psychiatry residency in 1984 at Tufts­New England Medical Center, Boston. Sommer completed two years of a clinical fellowship and then a National Institute of Mental Health geriatric psychiatry fellowship, both at McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass., and Harvard medical school. Before assuming her current post in 1996, she served for two years as assistant director of inpatient treatment at the research unit at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System's Menlo Park facility.

Penelope Zeifert, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford and UCSF, has served as chief of the Stanford neuropsychology service since it was consolidated in neurology in February 1997. She received her PhD in clinical psychology in 1990 from the California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley/Alameda. Since coming to Stanford in 1993, she has served as a staff neuropsychologist on several units, including the Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit (CIRU) and the geriatric- medical psychiatry units. The author of numerous publications, Zeifert has specialized in treating HIV-related neuropsychiatric conditions, including two years as a postdoctoral scholar on the neuropsychology service at San Francisco General Hospital, and one year as an attending psychologist at UCSF on the HIV-focused inpatient psychiatric unit at SFGH. 7. To arrange for a neuropsychology consultation or to ask questions about the service, phone (650) 723-7181. To reach Zeifert directly, call 498-7875. An orientation flyer is available describing the service and appropriate referral situations. Go to

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Fact File: Neuropsychology
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