Motor recovery after stroke depends on intact sustained attention: a 2-year follow-up study.
The functional recovery of 47 right-brain-damaged stroke patients was studied over a 2-year period. The researchers hypothesized that sustained attention capacity should predict the degree of motor and functional recovery over this period because of a proposed privileged role of sustained attention in learning-based recovery of function. As predicted, significant correlations were found between sustained attention capacity at 2 months and functional status (including the Barthel Index) at 2 years. This relationship was shown to exist independently of 2-month functional status. Furthermore, compared with a left-brain-damaged group of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients, the right-brain CVA group did not recover functional ability as well over the 2-year period. This increasing difference in functional status over a 2-year period was mirrored by an emerging difference in sustained attention capacity, in favor of the left-brain CVA group.
Robertson
I H
IH
MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Rehabilitation Research Group, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, England. ian.robertson@mrc-apu.cam.ac.uk
Ridgeway
V
V
Greenfield
E
E
Parr
A
A
D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*