HEMISPATIAL NEGLECT

Key words hemispatial neglect, attention, personal neglect, extrapersonal neglect

Left visual neglect as a result of right hemisphere defects, which is usually vascular in origin is associated with patients not eating from their left side of their plate, or shaving just one part of their face. 

Personal neglect can be assesed by looking wether the patient is caring only about the contralesional site. Extrapersonal neglect can be investigated with for example the line bisection task, in which patients have to cut the line in similar halves. Patients with neglect are impaired at this task. In cancellation tasks it is assesed whether the patient pays attention to the contralesional field.