Description

Spatial neglect (SN) is a common disorder following stroke, adversely affecting recovery. SN often involves associated symptoms, including anosognosia, extinction, difficulties with sustained attention and problems with emotional processing. Correct identification of SN and associated problems is essential for initiating alleviating strategies and for measuring progress. Several assessment tools exist, but psychometric testing has mostly been conducted in non-dynamic environments; a single country or culture. Thus non-transferable to a wider context and ward-based care. To optimize identification of SN and develop procedures for diverse healthcare settings, this cross-country study includes patients from Iceland and Lithuania. We will seek to maximize the clinical utility by avoiding exclusion of patients, e.g., with psycholinguistic difficulties and multiple strokes. We will: a) use behavioral SN assessment and visuo-graphic tests to validate a newly developed SN tool that incorporates many aspects of SN that are currently not addressed in conventional tests, b) validate integration of an additional component into the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale as a screening tool to identify SN, and c) evaluate differences in clinical characteristics between patients with left- and right-sided SN, and patients with and without SN.