Faculty Of Social and Behavioral Sciences

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Browsing Faculty Of Social and Behavioral Sciences by Author "Abdo, Rania Antoine"

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    Investigating the Co-occurrence of Visual and Auditory Neglect in a Patient with Right Hemisphere Stroke: A Case Study
    (1999) Abdo, Rania Antoine
    Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) has been observed in individuals suffering brain damage, specifically in the right hemisphere. USN is characterized by a failure, on the part of the patient, to orient towards, respond to, or report stimuli (visual, auditory or tactile…) presented in the hemispace contralateral to the hemisphere with the damage. Does USN involve modality-specific or supermodal mechanisms? In the present study the supermodality of USN is examined. Using updated versions of the Tachistoscopic Presentation (TP) and the Dichotic Listening (DL) tests, the co-occurrence of contralateral visual and contralateral auditory neglect is investigated. The purpose of the TP test is to compare the frequency of target identification in the left quadrants, center, and right quadrants of the screen. The purpose of the DL test is to compare frequency of correctly reported consonant-vowel syllables from the right and left ear during a non-forced, forced-right, and forced-left attentional condition. A case study of a 60-year-old male with a massive right hemisphere cerebrovascular accident is presented. A normal control participant was also tested. The patient's lesion involved the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes and the inferior parietal lobule. Neurological examination revealed left hemiparesis, left upper quadrant hemianopia and left hemianesthesia. The patient exhibited both left visual neglect and left auditory neglect. The results also showed that, compared to the control participant, the patient neglected, although less frequently, visual and auditory stimuli presented in the right hemisphere. In addition, when the patient was interviewed for anosognosia, he showed unawareness of visual and auditory neglect, of hemianopia, and of the exact nature of his illness and its implications, On the other hand he was to some extent aware of his motor defect, i.e., hemiparesis. The results of the follow up on the prognosis of visual neglect showed a clear amelioration of neglect in the left visual hemispace and especially in the right hemisphere. The results were discussed within the attention-arousal model of Hailman and his coworkers. The findings supported a supramodal neglect syndrome and the hypoarousal model proposed by Hailman and his coworkers.