Motor Recovery After Stroke Depends on Intact Sustained Attention: A 2-Year Follow-Up Study

• Published in: Neuropsychology 1997-04, Vol.11 (2), p.290-295
• Main Authors: Robertson, Ian H, Ridgeway, Valerie, Greenfield, Eve, Parr, Alice
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Attention - physiology; Brain Damage; Cerebrovascular Accidents; Cerebrovascular Disorders - physiopathology; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Followup Studies; Human; Humans; Left Hemisphere; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Activity - physiology; Motor Processes; Recovery (Disorders); Right Hemisphere; Sustained Attention
• ISSN: 0894-4105; 1931-1559
• DOI: 10.1037/0894-4105.11.2.290

The functional recovery of 47 right-brain-damaged stroke patients was studied over a 2-year period. The researchers hypothesized that sustained attention capacity should predict the degree of motor and functional recovery over this period because of a proposed privileged role of sustained attention in learning-based recovery of function. As predicted, significant correlations were found between sustained attention capacity at 2 months and functional status (including the Barthel Index) at 2 years. This relationship was shown to exist independently of 2-month functional status. Furthermore, compared with a left-brain-damaged group of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients, the right-brain CVA group did not recover functional ability as well over the 2-year period. This increasing difference in functional status over a 2-year period was mirrored by an emerging difference in sustained attention capacity, in favor of the left-brain CVA group.