Apraxia
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199655946.003.0016
Apraxia differs from other motor symptoms of hemisphere damage by the bilaterality of symptoms following unilateral, predominantly but not exclusively left-sided, hemisphere damage, and by their dependence on the kind and context of the motor actions. The domains of actions affected are imitation of gestures, pantomime of tool use, and use of tools and objects which can be further subdivided into use of single conventional mechanical tools and multistep actions involving multiple tools and objects. Imitation of hand postures, pantomime of tool use, and use of single familiar tools depend exclusively on integrity of the left hemisphere, whereas all other manifestations are also vulnerable to right brain damage. The majority of studies on apraxia derive from patients with circumscribed, mostly vascular, brain lesions, but apraxia is increasingly observed as a symptom of degenerative dementias that may be useful for differential diagnosis of types of dementia.
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