Abstract
The influence of aphasic disorder on the association between visuoconstructive disability and side of lesion in patients with unilateral cerebral disease was assessed in an effort to clarify certain persisting problems in this area. The performances of different groups of patients (defined in terms of side of lesion and presence or absence of expressive and receptive aphasic disorder) on a visuoconstructive task were compared. The major findings were that the patients with disease of the right hemisphere (all of whom were non-aphasic) showed a high frequency of constructional disability while, among the patients with disease of the left hemisphere, only those with receptive language disability showed a high frequency of disability. The results support the concept that there are two discrete types of visuoconstructive disability which are related to side of lesion, one being language-dependent and the other not. The neural mechanisms underlying these two types of disability still need to be identified.
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The personal researches reported in this paper were supported by Research Grant NS-00616 and Program-Project Grant NS-03354 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, U.S. Public Health Service.
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Benton, A.L. Visuoconstructive disability in patients with cerebral disease: Its relationship to side of lesion and aphasic disorder. Doc Ophthalmol 34, 67–76 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00151797
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00151797