Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 44, Issue 2, November 2000, Pages 253-279
Brain and Cognition

Regular Article
Task Demands and Limb Apraxia in Stroke

https://doi.org/10.1006/brcg.2000.1230Get rights and content

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the frequency and severity of apraxia in patients with left- or right-hemisphere stroke in both pantomime and imitation conditions and to compare the frequency of apraxia in each stroke group across the three patterns of apraxia described in Roy's model (Roy, 1996). Ninety-nine stroke patients and 15 age-matched healthy adults performed eight transitive gestures to pantomime and to imitation. Gestural performance was quantified as accuracy on five performance dimensions; a composite score, an arithmetic combination of the five performance dimensions, was used as an index of the overall accuracy. Analyses revealed a comparable proportion of patients in each stroke group were classified as apraxic in the imitation condition, but a higher proportion of left stroke patients were apraxic in the pantomime condition. The severity of apraxia in each stroke group and the performance dimensions affected were, however, comparable. Analyses of the patterns of apraxia (pantomime alone, imitation alone or apraxia in both conditions) revealed a higher frequency of apraxia in both stroke groups for the pattern reflecting apraxia in both conditions, indicating that a disruption at the movement execution stage of gesture performance was most common.

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    This research was funded through grants from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Eric Roy, Department of Kinesiology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1. E-mail: [email protected].

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