Landmark Agnosia: Evaluating the Definition of Landmark-based Navigation Impairment.
OBJECTIVE
Landmark agnosia is a rare type of navigation impairment, for which various definitions have been presented. From a clinical as well as theoretical perspective, consensus on the characteristics of landmark agnosia would be valuable. In the current study we review the literature concerning landmark agnosia and present a new case study. Existing literature highlights the importance of examining familiar as well as novel landmark processing and substantial variation in performance patterns of individual patients.


METHODS
We performed a case study with patient KS, a 53-year-old male, suffering from landmark agnosia, making use of elaborate neuropsychological screening and virtual reality-based tests of navigation ability.


RESULTS
Our extensive examination of his impairment shows that landmark agnosia can be very narrow; in KS it is restricted to recognition of newly learned landmarks only. Also, he has no trouble recognizing familiar landmarks that are not part of a navigated route.


CONCLUSIONS
The literature review shows that the right temporal lobe, and the right hippocampus in particular are the main lesion sites for landmark agnosia. Furthermore, our case study substantiates that this disorder can occur for both familiar and novel landmarks, and can affect novel landmarks in isolation from familiar landmarks. Moreover, it can occur in isolation from problems with processing route information.
Department of Health, Medical, and Neuropsychology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
Ineke J M
IJM
van der Ham
Department of Psychiatry,University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Marieke A G
MAG
Martens
Brain Center Rudolf Magnus and Center of Excellence for Rehabilitation Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht and De Hoogstraat Rehabilitation, Utrecht, the Netherlands.|Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Michiel H G
MHG
Claessen
Department of Neurology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Esther
E
van den Berg
D000377:Agnosia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D065854:Spatial Navigation / Q000502:physiology*
Landmark agnosia; Spatial cognition; Spatial navigation; Topographical disorientation; Virtual reality