Right Hemisphere Functions and Related Neuropsychological Deficits

Right Hemishpere Functions

Nonverbal

Music

Spatial

Wholistic/Synthetic

Parallel

Intuitive

Macrostructure

The "big" picture

ex. Forest

Microstructure

The details

ex. Trees

What are some deficits of RH damage?

Communication

Prosopagnosia (facial recognition)

Receptive and expressive facial expressions

Prosody

Visuoperceptual

Simultagnosia

Color Blindness

Attentional Defecits

Neglect

Sustained and Selective attention defecits

Neurological

Anosognosia

Capgras Delusion

Hallucinations

In regard to attention do RHD individuals tend to focus on micro or macrostructure?

Microstructure

RHS patients struggle with the "forest vs. trees" concept. What does this mean?

They focus on details (trees) but miss the main idea (forest)

What is the most common deficit in RHS?

Attention impairments

Name types of attention affected in RHS.

Focused, sustained, selective, divided

What is left neglect?

Ignoring the left side of space

Memory deficits in RHS are often due to what?

Attention impairments

What is prosopagnosia?

Inability to recognize faces

What is simultagnosia?

Inability to process multiple stimuli at once

What is topographical disorientation?

Getting lost in familiar places

What is anosognosia?

Lack of awareness of deficits

What is homonymous hemianopsia?

Loss of one side of visual field (typically the left side)

What is reduplicative amnesia?

Belief that a place exists in duplicate

Is initiation typically impaired in RHS?

No

Name executive function deficits in RHS.

Planning, organizing, problem solving, reasoning, inhibition

What communication deficits are most prominent in RHS?

Extralinguistic (pragmatics and prosody)

How does speech sound in RHS patients?

Flat, monotone

What are common conversational pragmatic problems in RHS?

Tangents, poor organization, irrelevant info

How do RHS patients describe pictures?

Focus on irrelevant details

What is impaired in aphasia that is relatively intact in RHS?

Grammar and language form

List causes of pragmatic deficits in RHS.

Impaired inferencing

Difficulty assessing plausibility

Task complexity

Reduced cognitive flexibility

What standardized assessments can be used for a RHD individual?

RIPA-2 and CLQT

What are some informal ways to assess a RHD patient

pragmatic scales, storytelling, neglect testing, inferencing questions