Spatial neglect in acute stroke: the line bisection test.

Line bisection testing was performed on 82 elderly subjects within 14 days of a non-lacunar stroke. The 40 subjects with impaired line bisection were of similar age and pre-stroke dependency as the 42 subjects with normal line bisection but had a more severe current stroke deficit as evidenced by a higher incidence of new hemiplegia, homonomous hemianopia, visual extinction and constructional impairment, and greater power loss. Subjects with impaired line bisection had poorer functional outcome than those with normal line bisection as measured by Barthel activities of daily living scores, walking speed and discharge residence. When subjects with impaired line bisection were divided into two groups according to line bisection error, the severely impaired had worse functional outcome than the mildly impaired. After accounting for motor loss and the ability to draw a house by using logistic regression, line bisection did not contribute significantly to predicting functional outcome.