Comprehensive assessment of gesture production: a new test of upper limb apraxia (TULIA).
BACKGROUND
Only few standardized apraxia scales are available and they do not cover all domains and semantic features of gesture production. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a newly developed test of upper limb apraxia (TULIA), which is comprehensive and still short to administer.


METHODS
The TULIA consists of 48 items including imitation and pantomime domain of non-symbolic (meaningless), intransitive (communicative) and transitive (tool related) gestures corresponding to 6 subtests. A 6-point scoring method (0-5) was used (score range 0-240). Performance was assessed by blinded raters based on videos in 133 stroke patients, 84 with left hemisphere damage (LHD) and 49 with right hemisphere damage (RHD), as well as 50 healthy subjects (HS).


RESULTS
The clinimetric findings demonstrated mostly good to excellent internal consistency, inter- and intra-rater (test-retest) reliability, both at the level of the six subtests and at individual item level. Criterion validity was evaluated by confirming hypotheses based on the literature. Construct validity was demonstrated by a high correlation (r = 0.82) with the De Renzi-test.


CONCLUSIONS
These results show that the TULIA is both a reliable and valid test to systematically assess gesture production. The test can be easily applied and is therefore useful for both research purposes and clinical practice.
Vanbellingen
T
T
Klinik Bethesda, Neurorehabilitation Centre, Tschugg, Switzerland.
Kersten
B
B
Van Hemelrijk
B
B
Van de Winckel
A
A
Bertschi
M
M
Müri
R
R
De Weerdt
W
W
Bohlhalter
S
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001072:Apraxias / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001132:Arm / Q000294:innervation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods; D015588:Observer Variation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis