RHS/ Dementia/ TBI Flashcards
Symptoms of RHS depend on….
severity and site of lesion!
What are some of the PERCEPTUAL impairments of RHS?
- Denial of illness
- Neglect
- Constructional impairment
- Topographic impairment
- Geographic disorientation
- Visuoperceptual impairments
- Facial recognition deficits
The denial of illness is particularly common in patients with …..
PARIETAL LOBE damage! (sensory!)
Patients with RHS typically have _______________ neglect!
LEFT SIDE neglect! (left hemi-spatial)
- not perceive stimuli on the left side of the body
- do not notice visual or auditory stimuli on left side
- reading pts with neglect omit words on the left side (e.g. baseball = ball)
What is motor neglect?
That is when the patient may fail to use their left side of the limbs even though there is NO motor problems with the limbs!
T or F:
Can neglect occur with damage to either hemisphere?
TRUE! However it is more severe and persistent with RH damage! 2/3 with RH damage have neglect vs. 1/3 with LH damage have neglect
What is constructional impairment?
- Problems with COPYING or DRAWING geometric designs/shapes.
- Those with RH damage tend to act impulsively and quickly and try to correct mistakes by adding extra lines or rearranging block designs.
What is visuoperceptual impairments?
- People with RHS have more difficulty understanding what the stimuli is when it is incomplete or distorted.
What perceptual/sensory disorder causes a person not to recognize familiar faces?
PROSOPAGNOSIA!
- People with RHS can’t recognize familiar people’s faces.
- Diff. discriminating women vs. men’s faces / old from young etc.
What is topographic impairment?
Problems with EXTRAPERSONAL space!
- difficulty following familiar routes, reading maps, giving directions.
- difficulty recognizing visual cues or familiar landmarks.
- may “talk” to themselves through directions to a place
Geographic disorientation?
*Person recognizes their surroundings but don’t know the location where they are! (may believe their are in a different country or city)
What are some of the COMMUNICATIVE impairments with RHS?
- Diminished speech prosody
- Don’t pick up on prosodic cues of emotions or facial expressions
- Attentional impairments - problems maintaining and shifting attention and focusing!
- Connected speech tends to be confabulatory, inappropriate, , excessive, rambling, irrelevant, tangential, digressive and inefficient!
- Impaired comprehension of narratives and conversations! (diff. with non-literal expressions and humor!)
- Pragmatic impairments ( diff. turn-taking, staying on topic, eye contact etc)
What are some of the characteristics of diminished speech prosody?
- lack of normal intonation
- monotonous speech
- decreased speech variability
- loudness variability
- speech lacking emotion
- reduced gestures
- slower rate / robotic spacing b/w words/syllables
What are 3 STANDARDIZED tests for RHS?
1) Right- Hemisphere Language Battery: (RHLB)
- 7 subtests looking at metaphors, humor, discourse and emphatic stress.
2) Mini-Inventory of Right Brain Injury (MIRBI)
- 10 categories including visual scanning, integrity of body image, reading and writing,, affective language, humor, absurdities, incongruities, and figurative language.
3) Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Evaluation of Communicative Problems in Right Hemisphere Dysfunction (RICE)
Can non-standardized tests be used to assess people with RHS?
Yes! There are some protocols that have been developed , assessing similar items as the standardized tests.
What are some of the most common tests used to asses visual and spatial perception?
1) CANCELLATION/scanning TESTS!
* Pts with RHS usually ignore stimuli on the left side.
2) BISECTION TESTS! - used for visual neglect.
Pts are asked to divide lines into 2 equal parts. People with RHS draw the line more towards the right.
3) Copying and drawing from memory tests- also used to assess neglect.
4) Person has to identify incomplete visual stimuli.
How is pragmatics assessed?
Using rating scales such as the RICE & RHLB
How is attention assessed?
1) Sustained Attention : presented with visual stimuli (e.g. flashing light) and pt pushes a button for each occurrence.
2) Selective Attention: presented with more than one stimuli and has to focus on one!
T of F:
A SLP should start working with a patient with RHS right away even though they are in denial.
FALSE
A clinician should wait to see if the denial gets resolved b/c it would be very difficult to work with a person that does not accept treatment.
If the person continues to be in denial an SLP should then use simple treatment goals and simplify the environment.
What are some SUSTAINED attention activities that an SLP give to a patient with RHS?
- Drills to improve using various tasks )
- pen and pencil tasks (mazes)
- auditory listening tasks
What are some SELECTIVE attention activities that an SLP give to a patient with RHS?
- Drills where the patient has to pay attention to a particular task
- using background interference (radio playing) while having to focus on something else.
How can a clinician address impulsivity?
Working on STOP and GO signals so the patient understands when is it appropriate to respond/ talk/ take turns etc.
How can a clinician work on reasoning and problem solving ?
Have the client solve simple problems. (What would you do? )
(e.g. The boy feel of the bike and you were watching…what would you do? )
How to work on reading impairments?
- Provide visual cues (look to the left!) by using colored markers or verbal cues
- Teach client to trace boundaries of an edge or page of book
- Give words on the right side of the page that don’t make sense unless they look towards the left.
How to work on pragmatics?
- use structured activities to practice turn taking skills
- provide visual/ verbal cues
- videotape patient so they can evaluate their behavior
- work on humor/ metaphors
T or F:
Patients with RHS have usually trouble generalizing. (carrying over knowledge to other situations)
TRUE
- An SLP should help the patient learn how to generalize across tasks
- e.g. patient learns how to greet in the clinic, he can greet the same way in other situations
T or F:
Most TBI injuries are open head injuries.
FALSE!
closed-head!!!
T or F:
Males are two to three times as likely to have a TBI as females
TRUE!
What are some risk factors?
- age
- gender
- substance abuse
- school adjustments and social history
- personality types
- participation in high risk sports