Rehabilitation of Topographical Disorientation: An Experimental Single Case Study

Patients with topographical disorientation characteristically have difficulty in finding their way from one location to another, despite intact basic visual processes. Topographical disorientation can be a feature of diffuse cognitive impairment (e.g. in dementia) or it can have a focal presentation, with other neuropsychological functions relatively intact. The present study examines the effects of a rehabilitation programme on the topographical functioning of a 46-year-old female patient, KL, who presented with relatively isolated symptoms of topographical disorientation of recentonset. According to recentresearch, such symptoms may resultfrom the breakdown of a single neuropsychological process or from the combined effects of several impairments. The latter appears to be the case for KL, whose topographical symptoms appeared to be related to impairment of some aspects of both memory and space perception/cognition. Intervention focused only on KL's difficulty in acquiring new topographical information, ...

[1]  A. Caramazza,et al.  For a theory of remediation of cognitive deficits , 1993 .

[2]  L. Brooks.  Spatial and verbal components of the act of recall. , 1968 .

[3]  D. Benson,et al.  Loss of topographic familiarity. An environmental agnosia. , 1986, Archives of neurology.

[4]  S. Clarke,et al.  Left hemisphere strategies in visual recognition, topographical orientation and time planning , 1993, Neuropsychologia.

[5]  G. Holmes.  DISTURBANCES OF VISION BY CEREBRAL LESIONS , 1918, The British journal of ophthalmology.

[6]  Quinn McNemar,et al.  Psychological statistics, 2nd ed. , 1955 .

[7]  A. Bartz,et al.  Basic Statistical Concepts in Education and the Behavioral Sciences. , 1978 .

[8]  J. Greene.  Contributions to Neuropsychological Assessment , 1995 .

[9]  S. Kosslyn.  Seeing and imagining in the cerebral hemispheres: a computational approach. , 1987, Psychological review.

[10]  M. Farah.  The neurological basis of mental imagery: A componential analysis , 1984, Cognition.

[11]  P. Rondot,et al.  Loss of Topographic Memory with Learning Deficits , 1980, Cortex.

[12]  Randy Georgemiller,et al.  2/Spatial Competence , 1986 .

[13]  J. Fisher,et al.  Neuropsychological Assessment, 2nd Ed , 1985 .

[14]  A. Baddeley.  A theory of rehabilitation without a model of learning is a vehicle without an engine: A comment on caramazza and hillis , 1993 .

[15]  G. Demeurisse,et al.  Pure Topographical Disorientation Due to a Deep-Seated Lesion With Cortical Remote Effects , 1992, Cortex.

[16]  G. Ratcliff.  Spatial thought, mental rotation and the right cerebral hemisphere , 1979, Neuropsychologia.

[17]  S. Cappa,et al.  Topographic disorientation—A case report , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[18]  Brenda Milner,et al.  The role of the right hippocampus in the recall of spatial location , 1981, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  I. Robertson.  Editorial: Methodology in neuropsychological rehabilitation research , 1994 .

[20]  A. Sirigu,et al.  Pure Topographical Disorientation: A Definition and Anatomical Basis , 1987, Cortex.

[21]  M. Botez,et al.  Visual memory deficits after damage to the anterior commissure and right fornix. , 1992, Archives of neurology.

[22]  S. Kosslyn,et al.  Visual Mental Imagery Activates Topographically Organized Visual Cortex: PET Investigations , 1993, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[23]  H. Teuber,et al.  Spatial Orientation in Man After Cerebral Injury: I. Analyses by Locus of Lesion , 1955 .

[24]  W. Mittenberg,et al.  Abnormal and Reliable Differences Among Wechsler Memory Scale—Revised Subtests. , 1991 .

[25]  Glyn W. Humphreys,et al.  Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Rehabilitation , 1994 .