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Content is anchored to trusted sources where available, but Compass has not yet been clinically reviewed. It provides general information rather than medical advice.

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Symptoms and clinical language

Executive function

The mental skills used to plan, start, organise and switch between tasks.

What it means

Not memory, and not intelligence. It is the set of skills that gets things started, keeps them in order and changes direction when needed. When it is affected, familiar tasks take more prompting even though the knowledge is intact.

Why you might hear it

  • It is what cognitive screening in ALS/MND mostly looks at.
  • It explains why some difficulties look like reluctance and are not.

People who may help

Where Compass goes into this

About this explanation

These are plain explanations of words you may come across, not advice about your own situation. Where a word matters to a decision, the question pages go into it properly, and your own team is the place to take it.