Neuropsychology and Neuroscience

The dedicated and caring team at Ormond Neuroscience offer a range of services in the field of neuropsychology. What we do is informed by the latest developments in neuroscience and backed up by years of clinical experience. That’s a great combination which benefits patients and their families. So, if you need neuropsychology, then you’re in the right place!

We deal with the intricacies of the human mind and the complexities of the human brain. Depression, traumatic brain injury, dementia, stroke, ASD, functional neurological disorders, hypoxia… You name it, we do it! (Well, mostly 😂 – there are some pretty obscure conditions out there, you know!) Ormond Neuroscience provides skillful diagnostic services, detailed assessment of brain function and targeted treatment of brain-mind disorders.

Digby Ormond-Brown, a clinical neuropsychologist and neuroscientist, heads up the team. We are based in a neurological rehabilitation hospital, the Netcare Rehabilitation Hospital, in Auckland Park, Johannesburg. We treat inpatients in the hospital and also work with outpatients.

The Ormond Neuroscience Team

Ormond Neuroscience comprises a team of dedicated professionals, each with unique skills. We have clinical staff who work in a coordinated manner in the application of clinical neuropsychology and neuroscience. Then, we have administrative staff who make the wheels turn and ensure it all unfolds smoothly and efficiently.

Julie Botha

Psychometrist

Julie Botha is a colourful character who has a long-standing fascination for neuropsychology. Her special needs daughter is a big inspiration to her and ignited her deep interest in all things psychology and brain related. Julie is our principal psychometrist and joined Ormond Neuroscience in February 2022. She is known for her ability to instil confidence in every patient through her authenticity, professional psychometric competence, and deep sense of care and compassion for each individual arriving for assessment. Julie received her BPsych equivalent in Psychometry from the University of Johannesburg and BA Honours in Augmentative and Alternative Communication from the University of Pretoria. In her spare time, she writes and illustrates children’s stories for her daughter, advocates for special needs children and adults and is Vice Principal of Queen Butterfly Foundation, a stimulation centre on the West Rand for children and young adults with profound mental and physical disabilities. She lives with her devoted husband, special needs daughter and a menagerie of rescue pets.

Tsaorelo Sefoto

Psychometrist

Tsoarelo is a long way from her childhood home in Tzaneen, Limpopo, and has made a life for herself in Midrand, Gauteng offering her skills and services to our hand-picked team of professionals. Psychometry is a challenging profession in our Rainbow Nation where psychometric tests are not always available in every official language. However, if instructions can be explained in a patient’s mother tongue, there is an enormous opportunity to extract high quality information from the testing process. Tsoarelo speaks four languages: Sepedi, SeTswana, isiZulu and English and is key to Ormond Neuroscience’s ability to ethically put patients through their paces with the help of her multilingualism whenever necessary. She is patient, efficient, and a skilled psychometrist who is able to guide patients through the unfamiliar territory of assessments in such way that they feel confident and supported. Tsoarelo joined the Ormond Neuroscience psychometry team in August 2023 and quickly became part of the Ormond Neuroscience family, fitting into our warm, integrated and authentic approach to patient care. She received her BPsych equivalent in Psychometry from the University of Johannesburg and Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the University of Pretoria. She is a loving wife and mother of two energetic children and loves to holiday on the Durban beaches, favouring the sand, sea and sun over the bushveld. When nobody is around, Tsoarelo loves singing in the shower to unleash her inner Brenda Fassie with her favourite singer being our homegrown Sjava.

Yonela Vakalisa

Administrator

When you walk into our Ormond Neuroscience office, it is Yonela’s friendly face that will greet you. She is our Office Manager and is as efficient as a hive of worker bees, directing you through the relevant processes required upon your arrival. She is the right hand to our Practice Manager and the Left Hand to our entire team of medical professionals. Her efficient, calm competence and her reassuring warmth is what makes her the perfect first encounter in our practice. Yonela is full of interesting talents and surprises. She graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Film and Media Production in 2020. This is why she has recently taken on the role of elevating our social media presence and helping grow our community’s awareness of Ormond Neuroscience’s unique service offerings. She joined Ormond Neuroscience in July 2022 and is an essential component of our efficiency and success. Medical professionals and patients have come to appreciate her expedience, friendly professionalism and endless willingness to help. When she is not coordinating myriad challenges that land on her desk at our practice each day, she is a deeply family orientated person, the mother of a young daughter and happens to possess a beautiful singing voice. It is this voice that you may hear answering our phone. When opportunity arises, her home is in the beautiful Eastern Cape where she enjoys memorable gatherings with her family, friends and community.

Jamie-Lee Botha

Administrator

It is always reassuring when patients are met with calm, efficient competence and compassion and Jamie-Lee embodies these qualities completely. For the past 15 years, as Practice Manager, she has forged strong relationships with medical professionals, legal teams, colleagues and most importantly our patients and their families. She has that rare gift of being able to multitask at an alarming rate and be all things to all people, which is an essential superpower in our practice. Her many years of experience, warmth and sincerity put people at ease and make patients and colleagues feel like part of our Ormond Neuroscience family. She has a Professional Project Management Diploma as well as a National Diploma in Business and Finance Management. Using her finance and management skills, she ensures professional efficiency, coordinating the many moving parts which are ever-present in and around our busy practice. Away from work life, Jamie-Lee is the wife of an engineer and mother of a young son and daughter who keep her on her toes. She is artistic, energetic and the glue that binds the family together. Her home is her sanctuary and filled with joyful wall-to-wall chaos. With never a dull moment, her enormous dogs and energetic children keep her life outrageously colourful and interesting.