Article

One of the neuropsychological deficits that can result from a stroke is the
neglect phenomenon. Neglect has traditionally been assessed with paper-and-pencil
tasks, which are administered within the reaching space of a person. The purpose
of this explorative study is to investigate whether it is possible to assess
neglect in the extrapersonal space based on the performance of acute stroke
patients, chronic stroke patients and healthy elderly in orientation and
exploration tasks when immersed in a three-dimensional (3D)-virtual environment.
Six able-bodied healthy elderly and 12 stroke patients (six subacute and six
chronic) participated in this explorative cross-sectional study. Neglect was
assessed by means of the 3D neglect test. Different parameters were measured at
two challenge levels with increasing difficulty. In the easiest level significant
differences between the groups were found for total time spent in the test, mean
response time left field of vision, and mean response time in the left field of
vision of the left virtual reality environment. Differences in search patterns
showed that subacute stroke patients had a much more fuzzy search pattern in
scanning the environment than healthy elderly and chronic stroke patients. With
respect to the more difficult level results showed significant differences
between healthy elderly and the total group of stroke patients. The results of this study suggest that a 3D neglect test by means of virtual reality has the
potential to detect and measure unilateral neglect.

Langue : ANGLAIS