Clinical Vignettes: Clinical cases that describe the symptoms of a patient with a neurological or

Clinical Vignettes: Clinical cases that describe the symptoms of a patient with a neurological or psychiatric disorder. From the descriptions, you will determine neuroanatomic localization and a diagnosis along with your rationale. Your thought process and rationale is more important than the correct diagnosis.

CLINICAL VIGNETTE INSTRUCTIONS
You will choose 6 of the following 11 clinical vignettes.  You may discuss your work with others, but your written work should be completely your own.  Please include references in your answer (use APA style).  Internet references are fine, but please use good judgment for credible sources.  Compare what you find on the internet with other resources such as journal articles or text books or check the references the website used.  Check the credentials of the author or organization (remember, anyone can write a webpage or edit wikipedia, also certain organizations have agendas and present biased data to support their cause/product).  Government websites such as health.nih.gov, MedlinePlus, or PubMed are good resources as are hospital information sites such as the Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic.  Please don’t bug your friend the doctor or nurse.  
 
Generally, all information necessary has been provided in each case.  In some instances, information has been withheld if it would make the diagnosis overly obvious (e.g. MRI showed large tumor in X; spinal MRI showed a herniated disc at Y; genetic testing showed the person had the gene for Z).  If you are completely stumped or read a dead-end, talk to me and I will let you know if there is any additional information.  There will also be many medical terms that you will not likely recognize.  Once again, an internet search can be useful.
 
Remember that the thought process and rationale is the most important aspect.  In the following example, I identified the neuroanatomical location and the relevant symptoms.  I then used a process of elimination to decide on the best diagnosis.  You do not have to come to the correct diagnosis.  Instead, you just need to show that you made a logical conclusion.  It is fine if you give several possibilities (e.g., damage to the prefrontal cortex is likely though without further tests, it is hard to determine if the damaged was caused by a stroke, tumor, or other brain injury).