Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitve Assessment (LOTCA)

ASSESSES: Generic cognition.

AGE GROUP: 18–69

LENGTH OF TIME TO ADMINISTER: 45–90 minutes

DEVELOPED BY: Katz, Livni, Erez and Averbuch

YEAR: 2011

NORMS: UK

The Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment is a series of tests that evaluate generic cognitive abilities. It is broken down into four main areas:

  1. Orientation – knowing what day, date, time it is;
  2. visual perception – recognising objects and shapes and understanding their purpose;
  3. spatial perception, which is to know where their body lies in space;
  4. thinking organisation, which evaluates general skills but with an emphasis on categorisation and object classification; and visual motor organisation which refers to reconstructive skills.

LOTCA can help identify strengths and weaknesses in different areas, measure learning potential and recognise thinking strategies as well as helping to identify and improve a person’s awareness of their cognitive difficulties.

The LOTCA can assess the beginning abilities of the client and then monitor progress through re-evaluation using the same standardised tests and sub-tests. The LOTCA can also be used as a generic starting point – an assessment to pin point areas of difficulty requiring further assessment.