At what point after a spinal cord injury is a psychological evaluation made? - Terrie Price, PhD

For many inpatient units, the psychologist is involved from the very beginning, and they begin the psychological assessment. And that’s going to begin through a series of questions—asking the individual about their life, about the injury, how they have experienced the injury. Asking them key background information questions, but also getting a sense of how the individual is interpreting and thinking about the injury now. So we really start at the very beginning collecting information, all that information is actually pertinent to helping to decide what are their current strengths, what kind of coping experiences have they had so far? What are their current coping skills to helping an individual refine and improve those skills in dealing with this life change?