11/38. Slowly progressive pure dysgraphia with late apraxia of speech: a further variant of the focal cerebral degeneration.We report a longitudinal neuropsychological investigation of a patient with slowly progressive pure dysgraphia. Cognitive analysis of writing errors suggested a selective impairment of the graphemic buffer. After about seven years, the patient developed an apraxia of speech. No other linguistic or generalized cognitive impairment occurred subsequently, so that, twelve years after the beginning of the disease, the patient showed complete independence in daily life and still remained professionally active. functional neuroimaging revealed hypoperfusion confined to left fronto-temporal lobe. This well-recognizable syndrome does not fit any of the cases described previously in the literature. This report therefore, adds another variant to heterogeneous clinical spectrum of focal neurodegenerative disorders, further suggesting the opportunity of their distinction from pathological processes leading to dementia.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = dysgraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
12/38. Lesion localization in apractic agraphia.Apractic agraphia is an impairment in writing in which the actual orthographic production of letters and words is abnormal despite normal sensorimotor function, visual feedback, and word and letter knowledge. We report one case and review the limited clinicoanatomical literature. Analysis of available cases supports the hypothesis that apractic agraphia is one of several related clinical disorders that are due to the loss of spatially and kinesthetically modulated movements. It is produced by lesions in the superior parietal lobule, usually in the hemisphere dominant for language.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 16.10476827982keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
13/38. Selective lower-case letter ideational dysgraphia.A case study of a man with a selective ideational dysgraphia for lower-case letters is described. His spelling skills were only very mildly impaired and there was no evidence of other praxic or visuoconstructional impairments. The findings are discussed in the context of information processing models. It is suggested that the representation of upper- and lower-case letters must be fairly independent.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = dysgraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
14/38. Right unilateral jargonagraphia as a symptom of callosal disconnection.We report the case of a right-handed patient who exhibited right unilateral jargonagraphia after a traumatic callosal hemorrhage. The lesions involved the entire corpus callosum, except for the lower part of the genu and the splenium. The patient's right unilateral jargonagraphia was characterized by neologisms and perseveration in kanji and kana, and was more prominent in kana than kanji. The jargonagraphia was similar to that observed in crossed aphasia, except that agraphia occurred only with the right hand. The patient also showed right unilateral tactile anomia and right tactile alexia, along with right-ear extinction on a dichotic listening test for verbal stimuli, which suggested that language function was lateralized to the right hemisphere. Since this patient had learned to write with his right hand, kinesthetic images of characters were thought to be formed and stored dominantly in the left hemisphere. We suggest that the callosal lesions disturbed the interhemispheric transfer of information for the dual-route procedures for writing in the right hemisphere, allowing the kinesthetic images of characters stored in the left hemisphere to be processed freely, resulting in the right unilateral jargonagraphia. At least two factors seem to explain that kana was more defective than kanji. First, writing in kana, which is assumed to be processed mainly via a sub-word phoneme to grapheme conversion route, might depend more strongly on lateralized linguistic processing than writing in kanji. Second, kanji, which represent meaning as well as phonology, with much more complicated graphic patterns than kana, are assumed to be processed in both hemispheres.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 24.15715241973keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
15/38. writing with the right hemisphere.We studied writing abilities in a strongly right-handed man following a massive stroke that resulted in virtually complete destruction of the language-dominant left hemisphere. writing was characterized by sensitivity to lexical-semantic variables (i.e., word frequency, imageability, and part of speech), semantic errors in writing to dictation and written naming, total inability to use the nonlexical phonological spelling route, and agrammatism in spontaneous writing. The reliance on a lexical-semantic strategy in spelling, semantic errors, and impaired phonology and syntax were all highly consistent with the general characteristics of right hemisphere language, as revealed by studies of split-brain patients and adults with dominant hemispherectomy. In addition, this pattern of writing closely resembled the syndrome of deep agraphia. These observations provide strong support for the hypothesis that deep agraphia reflects right hemisphere writing.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 5.3682560932732keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
16/38. Pure apraxic agraphia with recovery after drainage of a left frontal cyst.A case is reported of isolated apraxia of writing in which general limb praxis was spared. Spontaneous writing, writing to dictation and copying were equally affected. letter selection and spelling were preserved and other language functions intact. A CT scan revealed a left frontal arachnoid cyst. After surgical drainage the agraphia resolved. The anatomical basis of the disorder is discussed in the light of modern information processing models of writing.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 13.420640233183keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
17/38. marchiafava-bignami disease, syndrome of interhemispheric disconnection, and right-handed agraphia in a left-hander.We present an original case of marchiafava-bignami disease in a 47-year-old left-handed alcoholic man. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated the typical lesion, a necrosis of the middle portion of the corpus callosum. diagnosis may thus be established in the living. In our case, the course was not fatal, which, to our knowledge, has only been described in four other cases in the literature. Clinically, our patient demonstrated an interhemispheric disconnection syndrome. The striking feature is that some of the symptoms were on the side opposite of the one that has previously been described in the literature, eg, right-handed agraphia, while others were on the usual side, eg, left-handed anomia. We discuss cerebral dominance for speech and handedness in left-handers and come to the conclusion that our patient's clinical features can only be explained by right hemispheric dominance for handedness and bilateral hemispheric representation of speech.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 13.420640233183keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
18/38. Primary progressive non-fluent aphasia: a case study.A case study of a 65 year old man is described with an eight-year history of progressive primary non-fluent aphasia accompanied by agrammatism, phonemic paraphasias and mild spelling dysgraphia. His naming ability, however, has remained at an exceptionally high level and there has been no evidence of impairment of word or sentence comprehension. Non-verbal skills and memory functions have also been preserved within the range of his very high premorbid level of abilities. Single photon emission computed tomography was consistent with bifrontal hypoperfusion. We argue that the selective language deficits in this patient are characteristic of dynamic aphasia and of other speech disturbances which are also known to be associated with left frontal lesions. The possible underlying pathology is discussed in the context of known degenerative disorders.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.2keywords = dysgraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
19/38. Right hand agraphia and left hand apraxia following callosal damage in a right-hander.A right-handed Japanese man showed agraphia more marked with the right hand, apraxia confined to the left hand, and right ear extinction on dichotic listening, following damage to the anterior two-thirds of the corpus callosum, the rostral and lower parts of the right medial frontal lobe and a small portion of the left medial frontal lobe. The symptoms were attributed to hemispheric disconnection, on the assumption that the right hemisphere was dominant for language and the left for limb praxis. This case provides good evidence for dissociated lateralization of language and limb praxis in some right-handed individuals. The study of writing performance suggested the following hypotheses: (1) motor engrams for limb praxis and writing may be dissociated, and (2) motor engrams for writing Kana (phonogram) and Kanji (ideogram) letters are represented on both hemispheres, although the hemisphere nondominant for language seems unable to combine graphemes into a correct meaningful sequence.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 13.420640233183keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
20/38. Pure agraphia after deep left hemisphere haematoma.Pure agraphia is reported following haematoma in the left centrum semiovale sparing both parietal and frontal cortices. There was total inability to produce graphemes in the absence of limb apraxia. The lesion is assumed to have prevented linguistic and graphemic systems from gaining access to the frontal motor programme.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 13.420640233183keywords = agraphia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
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