Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program

Phone: 416-480-4079
Fax: 416-480-6022
Administrative Assistant: Cidalia Cina
Email: cidalia.cina@sunnybrook.ca

Education:

• MD, 1973, University of Toronto, Canada
• MRCPsych, 1978, U.K.
• FRCP(C), 1978
• SM, 1990, health policy and management, School of Public Health, Harvard University, U.S.

Appointments and Affiliations:

• Affiliate scientist, Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute
• Professor, department of psychiatry, University of Toronto

Research Foci:

• Cognitive screening (focus on clock-drawing test)
• Bipolar disorder in older adults
• Pharmacoepidemiology of mood stabilizers in late life
• Testamentary capacity

Research Summary:

Dr. Shulman is interested in developing a valid and practical brief cognitive screening instrument for an elderly population. His focus has been on the popular clock drawing test (CDT) to detect early signs of dementia and to monitor change in cognition. His review of the CDT in 2000 (see below) has garnered over 1,000 citations.

He has a longstanding interest in bipolar disorder in older adults. In particular, he is interested in lithium carbonate, and to provide guidelines for its safe and effective use in an older population.

Dr. Shulman, together with medical and legal colleagues, has helped to develop medico-legal guidelines for the retrospective and contemporaneous assessment of testamentary capacity (capacity to make a will) and vulnerability to undue influence. Most recently, he and colleagues published an update to the traditional legal test for testamentary capacity (Banks v Goodfellow) in the Canadian Bar Review.

Selected Publications:

See current publications list at PubMed.

1. Shulman K, Himel S, Hull I, Peisah C, Amodeo, S and Barnes C. (in press). Banks v Goodfellow 1870: Time to update the test for testamentary capacity. Canadian Bar Review. 2017.
2. Shulman K, Hull, IM, De Koven S, Amodeo S, Mainland B, Herrmann N. Cognitive fluctuations and the lucid Interval in dementia: Implications for testamentary capacity. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 2015;43(3):28–92
3. Mainland BJ, Amodeo S, Shulman K. Multiple clock drawing scoring systems: Simpler is better. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2014;29(2):127–136.
4. Amodeo S, Mainland B, Herrmann N, Shulman K. The times they are a-changin’: clock drawing and prediction of dementia. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology. 2015;28(2):145–155.
5. Shulman K. Clock-drawing: Is it the ideal cognitive screening test? Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2000;15:548–561.

Related News and Stories:

• Mood disorders across our lives (SRI Magazine, 2013)