title: The relationship between visuospatial ability and cognitive function in patients with right-hemisphere infarction.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The relationship between visuospatial ability and cognitive function is still controversial among the patients with right-hemisphere damage.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To elucidate the relationship between the visuospatial ability and cognitive function in patients with right-hemisphere infarction, we analyzed the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and behavioral inattention test (BIT).
  
  
  METHODS
  The present study was based on 54 right-handed patients (35 men, 19 women; 69.3 ± 11.1 years old) who were admitted to our hospital due to the right-hemisphere infarction in acute and subacute stages. Those who showed recent bilateral or infero-tentorial lesions were excluded. A total of 77 sets of MMSE and BIT Japanese edition were carried out. BIT is consisted of conventional and behavioral subtest, and conventional subtest includes 6 subtests: line cancelation, star cancelation and character cancelation subtests were categorized as intentional tasks, whereas copy, line bisection, and drawing subtests as attentional tasks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  With Spearman's rank correlation, there was a significant correlation between MMSE score and number of errors in the attentional tasks (p=0.0022, ρ=-0.352), whereas there was no significant correlation between MMSE score and number of errors in the intentional tasks (p=0.1769).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Since the attentional tasks of BIT were more deeply influenced by cognitive function than the intentional tasks, the visuospatial ability reflecting in the attentional tasks was considered to be more closely associated with the cognitive function among the patients with cerebral infarction on their right cerebral hemisphere.
authors: Department of Neurology, Research Institute for Brain and Blood Vessels, Akita, Japan. h-kato@tokyo-med.ac.jp
authors: Haruhisa
authors: H
authors: Kato
authors: Miyuki
authors: M
authors: Seki
authors: Junya
authors: J
authors: Shindo
authors: Takashi
authors: T
authors: Yamazaki
authors: Yuichi
authors: Y
authors: Sato
authors: Hiroya
authors: H
authors: Utsumi
authors: Ken
authors: K
authors: Nagata
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D020520:Brain Infarction / Q000150:complications*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric