Malingering of a neurocognitive secondary dysfunction following a cranioencephalic trauma.

Diagnóstico de Simulación de Disfunción Neurocognitiva en sujetos que presentan accidentes laborales

After a head trauma some people find themselves in a position in which they try to get some external benefits and often exaggerate some existing or made up cognitive or psychological symptoms. Purpose: To establish the usefulness of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) as well as the psychometrics to determine the Simulation of Neurocognitive Dysfunction in workers that have suffered head trauma. Method: the participants in this research were convenient. There were three non-paired groups, adults over 18 and from both sexes.  The first group was made up of 32 people who were active workers before the head trauma, at least 6 months before the evaluation. The second group was made up of 30 people who were retired and had no SND needs. And the last one, were 31 people cognitively healthy who wished to participate in the study.  Results: the TOMM is able to differentiate those probable people that simulate neurocognitive dysfunctions and those that do not. 45 was the point for trial 2, 92.04% of controlled participants (81/88) and 5 out of the 5 simulators (100%) were correctly identified, which corresponds to a sensibility of 100% and a specificity of 92%, that is the probability to correctly classify an individual as a simulator, when he or she is indeed a real simulator is 100%; however, the probability of classifying an individual as a simulator without really being one is 8%.