Open Collections

Scott, Jason L.

University of British Columbia

Hemispatial neglect (HN) is a complex cognitive syndrome that is difficult to directly assess and rehabilitate (Verdon et al., 2010; Vuilleumier & Saj, 2013). As a leading cause of disability in stroke survivors, HN is a significant predictor of functional outcome, recovery trajectory, and hospital discharge status (Chen et al., 2015). Historically, the diagnosis of HN has incorporated “paper-and-pencil” assessment measures (Bickerton et al., 2011) that lack adequate sensitivity (Azouvi et al., 2002). Discouragingly, even the most effective measures, such as the Star Cancellation Test and the Line Bisection Test, show only modest sensitivity in identifying HN, with rates of 52% and 38% respectively (Lindell et al., 2007). In this study, we sought to assess the overall effectiveness of available specialized measures of HN using a multilevel meta-analytic approach. Results revealed that assessment measures of HN are sensitive in discerning visuospatial attentional impairments between populations with moderate to severe HN presentations and populations without HN. However, our findings suggest that the effectiveness of these measures in detecting true HN indicated performance may be better explained by characteristics other than the assessment measures themselves, such as the average time since initial injury, individuals’ age, stroke location, and the test scoring metric used. Without accounting for these influential factors, performance differences between these groups may show considerably smaller effects. Additionally, our findings suggest that certain measures may be more effective than others in their diagnostic accuracy. As such, this study provides valuable insights into the specific factors and measures that are necessary to better understand test performance differences between groups with HN and groups without HN. Accounting for these factors when measuring test performance in stroke populations may improve the diagnostic confidence and the appraisal of visuospatial deficits during clinical assessment, ultimately leading to better detection and intervention strategies for those with HN.

Text

2023-08-23

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85581

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/