Today I am reading about executive function impairment. What are executive functions you may ask? Well, let me tell you!

Executive Functions are the capabilities that enable a person to perform tasks that are independent, purposeful self-directed and in self-serving behaviour.

The reason that I am reading this, is to understand the role that organization and planning play in our daily lives. I want to know what happens if this ability is almost non-existent, or impaired; how then, would the lack of organization and planning affect our lives?

I’m sure I could have started in memory, but I am assuming that there are very few people that I know that suffer from a memory impairment. That’s also just me being time-anxious, or too lazy to go back and read that section before I finish writing this entry out.

Before we go any further, the title “Hello World” is something I have used before, and it’s usually done in computer programming. I don’t remember why (maybe I should read that memory section) but it is. I use the title for many reasons, like when I don’t have a title.

Executive functions differ from cognitive functions, as they concern with how or when something will be done, where as cognitive function would focus on the what can be done and the amount that you know.

One of the more significant aspects of executive disorder function are patients who don’t suffer from the significant impairment of the receptive or expressive forms of executive functions, yet do have impairments in a psychosocial setting where the capacity to initiate activity is impaired, along with decreased or absent motivation and deficits in planning/carrying-out the activity sequences that make up goal directed behaviours. Those with these types of deficits are mistakenly labelled as malingering, lazy or spoiled, psychiatrically disturbed – or if this behaviour is after a brain injury case – can be labelled as “compensation neurosis” – that once the case settles and the persons symptoms will disappear.

Really makes you think, but then again, there is the problem of learned behavior, and actual damage to the brain areas that control these functions. I read that changes to a person’s personality is really common with those with brain disorders and brain injury. Man this stuff is really complicated, another reason why we shouldn’t have random people give reports, especially those who just take a few classes.