Assessment of Lifestyle Factors Associated with Brain Health

While assessment of cognitive functioning is an essential feature of most neuropsychologists’ work, little attention has been paid to evaluating lifestyle factors known to positively impact brain and cognitive health. This chapter considers multiple strategies to clarify patients’ engagement in lifestyle activities such as exercise, socialization, cognitively stimulating activity, cognitive strategy use, and brain-healthy nutrition. We review interview-based techniques to assess lifestyle factors that can be incorporated into any clinician’s psychosocial interview to determine how engaged an individual may be. We then discuss existing psychometric measures that have often been developed for research purposes but also have potential clinical applications. Finally, we detail the development of, and existing empirical findings related to, the Cognitive Health Questionnaire, a measure that can be used across settings to characterize levels of participation in a variety of brain-healthy lifestyle activities.