Stephanie Towns, PsyD, ABPP
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Associate Professor of Neurology
Training Director, Neuropsychology
Biography
Dr. Towns is board-certified in clinical neuropsychology and is an Associate Professor in the Neurology Department. She earned her doctorate from Antioch University of New England and completed her internship at the James A Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, FL. Dr. Towns completed her postdoctoral residency in neuropsychology and neuroimaging at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Dr. Towns works primarily out of Greenwich, CT and sees adult patients suffering from a variety of neurological diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, stroke, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. She serves as the Neuropsychology training director and acts as the primary supervisor for the neuropsychology externship and residency programs. Her primary research interests involve the relationship of sleep and cognitive symptoms in patients with neurological disease as well as issues in clinical neuropsychology training. Dr. Towns is also active in her professional community serving as an active member and chair of multiple committees particularly those dedicated to neuropsychological training.
Appointments
Neurology
Associate Professor on TermPrimary
Other Departments & Organizations
- Neurology
- Neuropsychology
- Yale Medicine
Education & Training
- Postdoctoral fellow
- Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth (2016)
- PsyD
- Antioch University New England, Clinical Psychology (2014)
- Neuropsychology Intern
- James A Haley VA Medical Center (2014)
- MS
- Loyola University of Maryland, Clinical Psychology (2008)
- BS
- Miami University of Ohio, Psychology
Research
Overview
Medical Research Interests
Academic Achievements & Community Involvement
Clinical Care
Overview
Stephanie Towns, PsyD (an advanced degree in psychology), is a clinical neuropsychologist who evaluates patients with different neurological conditions, including epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. She frequently sees patients referred to her due to concerns about memory loss.
Clinical neuropsychologists are trained to evaluate a patient’s behavior and cognitive functioning through detailed interviews and a battery of tests that include a range of tasks, from recalling information to solving puzzles. They then collaborate with a patient’s doctors to help form a treatment plan. “A patient’s MRI image cannot capture everything. We still sometimes need to assess the behavioral expression of brain problems. Someone could be forgetting things or having trouble paying attention or interpreting visual information—my specialty is that behavior expression piece,” Dr. Towns says.
During graduate school, Dr. Towns discovered how much she enjoyed putting together the puzzle pieces of cognitive testing that help determine how a person’s brain is performing. “People are not good at describing their own cognitive function,” she says. As an example, someone might say they have a severe memory problem, but cognitive tests point to a language problem.
“The most rewarding part of my job is telling a person what they can do about the problem. Giving people that sense of hope is important,” Dr. Towns says.
Dr. Towns also dedicates time to her ongoing research into the relationship between sleep and cognition in people with neurological diseases. “Sleep is an intervention point we can target easily and inexpensively to improve someone’s cognition,” she says. Patients with multiple sclerosis, for example, have reported a higher quality of life after changing their sleep habits.
Dr. Towns is an assistant professor of clinical neurology at Yale School of Medicine.
Clinical Specialties
Fact Sheets
Brain Injury
Learn More on Yale MedicineParkinson's Disease
Learn More on Yale MedicineHemorrhagic Stroke
Learn More on Yale MedicineDementia
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Board Certifications
Clinical Neuropsychology
- Certification Organization
- AB of Professional Psychology
- Original Certification Date
- 2017
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