Dr. Philip E. Stieg, Chairman of the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, has announced that Amanda L. Sacks, Ph.D., ABPP-CN, has been appointed to the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Sacks is a neuropsychologist who specializes in cognitive remediation for deficits caused by traumatic brain injury; brain tumors and cranial surgery; chemotherapy and radiation; and stroke and other cerebrovascular conditions and events.
Dr. Sacks is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist with extensive experience in assessing and treating neurological disorders with cognitive remediation as well as researching the cognitive impact of brain injury. She treats a variety of patients who suffer from cognitive and emotional difficulties that may be the result of radiation or chemotherapy; epilepsy; cardiopulmonary bypass procedures; surgery; cerebrovascular disease; stroke; silent infarcts; brain tumor resection; movement disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease; metabolic disorders; infectious processes such as encephalitis or Lyme disease; chemical toxin exposure; traumatic brain injury; and dementia diagnoses including mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, multi-infarct dementia, and frontal temporal dementia.
The addition of Dr. Sacks to our faculty expands the services offered by the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center to include cognitive remediation and psychotherapy after surgery, trauma, stroke, or other cerebrovascular disorder.
Dr. Sacks received her undergraduate degree in psychology from The George Washington University and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fairleigh Dickinson University. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at University Behavioral Healthcare, UMDNJ, focusing on geropsychology and one at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, where she was trained in assessing, treating, and researching acquired and traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Sacks has been involved in various research projects throughout her training and professional career. Specifically, during her first postdoctoral fellowship at the University Behavioral Healthcare, UMDNJ, she derived research projects examining cognitive correlates of emotion in dementia as well as published book chapters regarding PTSD and family interventions in older adults. During her second postdoctoral fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center, she assisted in deriving manualized Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for individuals post-TBI for the purpose of researching the efficacy of this treatment, participated in systematic reviews of literature on evidenced based practices of treatment post TBI, developed research projects, published findings, and presented at conferences on TBI and aging. During her time as a faculty appointed member to the Department of Anesthesiology at NYULMC, Dr. Sacks analyzed and presented data on post-operative cognitive dysfunction as well as derived research studies on cognitive issues post-operatively in cardiac patients and cognitive issues related to compliance in the wound care population. She is currently in the process of developing research projects to examine the efficacy of cognitive remediation programs on post-operative cognitive difficulties in brain tumor patients within the Department of Neurological Surgery Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center.
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