We saw another doctor. We had more testing done. The results were pretty much what we expected. It was a result we wanted; it was a result we really didn’t want.
We went to a neuropsychologist. He specializes in understanding the behavior between the brain and your behavior. He performs a bunch of tests to evaluate how your brain responds and determines the changes in cognitive abilities. This is part of the process in applying for disability. It helps to show that a person does in fact have cognitive issues that affect their day to day life and ability to perform a job.
The results are double edged sword. From the standpoint of applying for disability, it was good. From the standpoint of Robert’s progression in the disease, it was bad.
The test results show his intellectual resources are in the 19th percentile or less. The words that stand out are abnormal, varying degrees of impaired, significantly comprised, uneven, deficient and below average in various categories for the 13 different tests that were performed.
There is no doubt about it. Robert has a severe decline in his cognitive ability. Severe enough to make it obvious that learning a new task or performing a new job would be a big problem. Severe enough to show that he can no longer maintain a job that requires him to retain information and complete multiple processes needed to do the types of jobs he has done for the last 35 years or so. From the standpoint of applying for disability, this is the result we wanted. It is more evidence of his need for SSDI.
This is also more evidence that this horrific disease has begun to effect Robert. Knowing that this disease has finally taken residence in his brain and begun to cause deterioration is not something we wanted to hear.
Now, we send this off to Social Security to add to the file in hopes that it helps show the need for approval on the first try. In the meantime, we continue to wait.
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