McCarthy Marie, Beaumont J Graham, Thompson Russell, Pringle Hayley
University of Surrey, Roehampton, London, UK.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2002 Jul;17(5):407-22.
Two single case studies are presented examining the effects of imagined limb activation in participants with unilateral visual neglect and severe physical disabilities. The first study employed a standard ABBABBA design where the participant was asked to imagine making movements with his left arm during the intervention conditions. Neglect was systematically assessed at each stage on the following measures: line bisection, star cancellation, and a scanning task. Performance during intervention conditions was compared to baseline conditions. The results suggest that imagined activation of the left arm may significantly reduce the severity of left neglect. The second study used an ACCABBACCABBA design. The participant was asked to imagine making movements with his left arm during the intervention conditions and with his right arm during the control conditions. The measures used in this study were line bisection, star cancellation, and letter cancellation. The results showed that there was no reduction in neglect symptoms associated with imagined left arm movements, but there was an increase associated with imagined right arm movements. This was thought to represent either a specific difficulty imagining left arm movements or a difficulty in combining left arm imagined arm movement with task completion. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that imagined movement can affect the presentation of neglect, and that the effects are specific to the arm that is used. This technique may prove useful to the clinical practitioner working with severely disabled brain-injured adults with neglect for whom conventional intervention techniques are inappropriate.
本文呈现了两项单病例研究，考察了想象肢体激活对单侧视觉忽视及严重身体残疾参与者的影响。第一项研究采用标准的ABBABBA设计，要求参与者在干预阶段想象用左臂做动作。在每个阶段，通过以下测量方法系统评估忽视情况：线段二等分、星形删除和一项扫描任务。将干预阶段的表现与基线阶段进行比较。结果表明，想象激活左臂可能会显著降低左侧忽视的严重程度。第二项研究采用ACCABBACCABBA设计。要求参与者在干预阶段想象用左臂做动作，在对照阶段想象用右臂做动作。本研究使用的测量方法为线段二等分、星形删除和字母删除。结果显示，与想象左臂动作相关的忽视症状没有减轻，但与想象右臂动作相关的忽视症状有所增加。这被认为要么是想象左臂动作存在特定困难，要么是难以将想象的左臂动作与任务完成相结合。总体而言，结果支持了这样的假设，即想象动作会影响忽视的表现，且这种影响特定于所使用的手臂。对于因传统干预技术不适用而患有忽视症的重度残疾脑损伤成年患者，临床医生使用这项技术可能会有帮助。
