Computer-based attention-demanding testing unveils severe neglect in apparently intact patients

Behav Neurol. 2013;26(3):179-81. doi: 10.3233/BEN-2012-129005.

Abstract

We tested a group of ten post-acute right-hemisphere damaged patients. Patients had no neglect according to paper-and-pencil cancellation tasks. They were administered computer-based single- and dual-tasks, requiring to orally name the position of appearance (e.g. left vs. right) of briefly-presented lateralized targets. Patients omitted a consistent number of contralesional targets (≈ 40%) under the single-task condition. When required to perform a concurrent task which recruited additional attentional resources (dual-tasks), patients' awareness for contralesional hemispace was severely affected, with less than one third of contralesional targets detected (≈ 70% of omissions). In contrast, performance for ipsilesional (right-sided) targets was close to ceiling, showing that the deficit unveiled by computer-based testing selectively affected the contralesional hemispace. We conclude that computer-based, attention-demanding tasks are strikingly more sensitive than cancellation tasks in detecting neglect, because they are relatively immune to compensatory strategies that are often deployed by post-acute patients.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Computers
  • Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality / physiology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Perceptual Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Perceptual Disorders / psychology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*