The different types of limb apraxia errors made by patients with left vs. right hemisphere damage.
Limb apraxia errors were compared among normal controls and right- or left-hemisphere-damaged patients as they imitated gestures with the ipsilateral hand. Both brain-damaged groups made similar errors on nonrepresentative and representative/intransitive movements. In contrast for pretended object use movements (transitive), the left-hemisphere-damaged group made more arm position and classical body-part-as-object errors while the right hemisphere group made as many partial errors and more less-primitive, body-part-as-object errors than the left-hemisphere-damaged group. These results help explain why a certain percentage of right-hemisphere-damaged patients are labeled apraxic, but also suggest that the left hemisphere is more important for integrating intrapersonal space and the "representation" of extrapersonal space.
D001037:Aphasia / Q000175:diagnosis; D001072:Apraxias / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007699:Kinesthesis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance