Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Neurology

Educational Lecture V:
Neurology of praxis disorder

Atsushi Yamadori, M.D.

Division of Neuropsychology, Department of Disability Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine

Based on the analysis of four types of basic praxis disorders, i.e. disturbance of single tool use (ideational apraxia), impairment of pantomiming ability to use a tool (ideomotor apraxia), inability to copy a non-meaningful finger pattern (limbkinetic apraxia), and inability to reproduce a series of hand movements (dynamic apraxia), a hypothesis on the neural organization of higher order motor production was proposed. It was stressed that these four types of praxis disorder should not be considered as different kinds of movement disorders at the same level. Rather they are examples of the motor realization disorder each representing a different level of neural substrate in a hierarchically organized motor structure.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 42: 1082|1084, 2002)
key words: ideational apraxia, ideomotor apraxia, limbkinetic apraxia, dynamic apraxia, praxis

(Received: 30-May-02)