Persistent neglect in everyday life

Publication date: Available online 3 October 2017
Source:Cortex
Author(s): Sergio Della Sala, Nicoletta Beschin, Roberto Cubelli
Unilateral Spatial Neglect (USN) is a multifarious syndrome (Cubelli, 2017), aspects of which could be long lasting either as poor performance on individual diagnostic tests (Farnè et al., 2004), in subclinical forms (Colombo et al., 1982) or as a marked preference for the ipsilesional side even in the absence of overt omissions (Mattingley, et al., 1994). The assessment of USN, both when first diagnosed and in the follow-ups, is carried out by means of standard tests. However, these tests are not equipoise in detecting USN (Halligan et al., 1989); they can present double dissociations (Halligan and Marshall, 1992) and can be differentially sensitive to compensation strategies (Campbell and Oxbury, 1976). Therefore, it is widely assumed that the more tests are used, the higher is the probability of detecting signs of initial or residual USN (Azouvi et al., 2006). Nevertheless, we have observed a dissociation between normal performance on all formal tests of a very large battery and clear signs of USN in everyday tasks and actions.



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