Analyses of Deficits in Gestural Pantomime

Abstract

The frequency and characteristics of apraxia in 63 stroke patients with left- or right-hemisphere damage were examined. Analyses focussing on five dimensions of gestural performance revealed an overall frequency of apraxia of 54 % in patients with LHD and 30 % in patients with RHD. Although both groups were impaired on the orientation and hand posture dimensions of performance, the patients with RHD exhibited significantly poorer performance on the location dimension and the patients with LHD on the action dimension. Analyses of intrahemispheric lesion localization implicated damage to subcortical areas involving periventricular white matter tracts at the temporoparietal junction with apraxia.