Although ideomotor limb apraxia is considered to be a typical sign of cortical pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), it has been also reported in subcortical neurodegenerative diseases and vascular lesions. We aimed to investigate the difference between AD, subcortical vascular dementia (SVaD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients by means of ideomotor limb apraxia frequency and ...

AIM To assess the reliability and validity of the Van Heugten test for apraxia (VHA), developed for and used in stroke patients, in a memory clinic population. Furthermore, we assess the presence and severity of apraxia in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and investigate which AD patients are likely to develop apraxia. METHODS We included 90 controls (age: 60 ± 9 y...

In typical right-handed patients both apraxia and aphasia are caused by damage to the left hemisphere, which also controls the dominant right hand. In left-handed subjects the lateralities of language and of control of the dominant hand can dissociate. This permits disentangling the association of apraxia with aphasia from that with handedness. Pantomime of tool use, actual tool use and imitati...

Childhood verbal apraxia has not been identified or treated sufficiently in children with Down syndrome but recent research has documented that symptoms of childhood verbal apraxia can be found in children with Down syndrome. But, it is not routinely diagnosed in this population. There is neither an assessment tool in Turkish nor any research on childhood verbal apraxia although there is a dema...

OBJECTIVE To discover how reliably speech and language therapists could diagnose apraxia of speech using their clinical judgement, by measuring whether they were consistent (intra-rater reliability), and whether their diagnoses agreed (inter-rater reliability). DESIGN Video clips of people with communication difficulties following stroke were rated by four speech and language therapists who w...

Ever since Liepmann's original descriptions at the beginning of the century apraxia has usually been attributed to damage confined to the cerebral cortex and/or cortico-cortical connecting pathways. However, there have been suggestions that apraxia can be due to deep subcortical lesions, which raises the question as to whether damage to the basal ganglia or thalamus can cause apraxia. We theref...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of a rehabilitative training program for patients with limb apraxia. DESIGN Randomized, controlled trial. SETTING Neurologic rehabilitation unit of a university hospital. PATIENTS Thirteen patients with acquired brain injury and limb apraxia (lasting more than 2 months) as a result of lesions involving the left cerebral hemisphere. Patients were assig...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether specifically designed activities of daily living (ADL) observations can measure disability due to apraxia with more sensitivity than the Barthel ADL Index, a conventional functional scale. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Rehabilitation centres and nursing homes. SUBJECTS One hundred and six left hemisphere stroke patients with apraxia, hospitalized in ...

Praxis, the ability to perform skilled or learned movements is essential for daily living. Inability to perform such praxis movements is defined as apraxia. Apraxia can be further classified into subtypes such as ideomotor, ideational and limb-kinetic apraxia. Relevant brain regions have been found to include the motor, premotor, temporal and parietal cortices. Apraxia is found in a variety of ...

Praxic functions are frequently altered following brain lesion, giving rise to apraxia - a complex pattern of impairments that is difficult to assess or interpret. In this chapter, we review the current taxonomies of apraxia and related cognitive and neuropsychological models. We also address the questions of the neuroanatomical correlates of apraxia, the relation between apraxia and aphasia an...