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Biomedical subjects

E Capitani

Publications and source records attributed to E Capitani.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Perceptual attention in aging and dementia measured by Gottschaldt's Hidden Figure Test.

Gottschaldt's Hidden Figure Test (GHFT) calls for figure-ground discrimination abilities. The aim of this study was to provide a perceptual attention test for the cognitive assessment of demented patients. In Experiment 1, GHFT normal baselines on 190 healthy controls are achieved, and age-education score correction as well as transformation of the original scores into "Equivalent Scores" is established. On the inferential percentile allocation of 45 mildly-moderately deteriorated DAT patients, 65% of them performed in the critically low range of the score distribution. In Experiment 2, the discriminant power of GHFT between DAT patients and healthy controls matched by age and Experiment 2, the discriminant power of GHFT between DAT patients and healthy controls matched by age and education is assessed. Overall correct classification reached 90%. This experiment shows that GHFT in demented patients works chiefly as an attentional task. The discussion is based largely on methodological and statistical issues.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Progressive language impairment without dementia: a case with isolated category specific semantic defect.

A patient is described with a 5 year progressive defect of naming and auditory verbal comprehension, the pathological nature of which was presumably degenerative. The auditory comprehension defect unevenly affected different semantic categories, and was particularly severe for the names of animals, fruits and vegetables. The patients showed loss of the verbal knowledge of the physical attributes of the concepts corresponding to the words he was unable to understand, and sparing of the verbal knowledge of the functional attributes. His performance was defective also on the colour-figure and sound-picture matching test.

Aged↗
PubMed1987

Verbal and spatial immediate memory span: normative data from 1355 adults and 1112 children.

Norms are provided for verbal and visuo-spatial immediate memory span, two tasks widely used in the clinical assessment of short-term memory and its neurological disorders. Data have been collected from 1355 male and female adult subjects, with various educational backgrounds and a 20-99 years age range. Span shows a major decrement after the late sixties and is affected by educational level. Male subjects score better on the spatial task. Data collected from 1112 male and female children, 4-to-10 year-old, show that span increases with age and boys score better on the spatial test.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Age and evolution of language area functions. A study on adult stroke patients.

This study attempted to verify some of the hypotheses advanced to explain the repeatedly reported finding that non-fluent aphasics are younger than fluent aphasics. One hundred and ninety eight vascular patients with cerebral infarcts documented by CT-scan were investigated. Also in this sample fluent patients were older than non-fluent patients. Age was found not to differ according to lesion site (anterior versus posterior). Patients with extensive lesions were, on average, younger than those with more restricted damage. The most interesting finding was that more than half patients with anterior lesion had fluent aphasia and that were remarkably older than anterior patients presenting with the classical non-fluent picture. It is inferred that anterior language areas undergo some kind of progressive functional evolution with age, though not in the sense postulated by Brown and Jaffe.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Recovery from ideomotor apraxia. A study on acute stroke patients.

In this study we investigated whether there are predictors for recovery from ideomotor apraxia (IMA) in patients with focal left hemisphere vascular lesions. Recovery was followed in 26 patients, first examined between 15 and 30 days postonset. They were apraxic at the first examination and had a second (and in some cases, a third) neuropsychological assessment after some months. Six patients with bilateral lesions were also studied to help to define the role of the right hemisphere in recovery from IMA. Other neuropsychological variables (Token Test, Progressive Matrices and Oral Apraxia scores) and site and size of the lesion were also determined. The main results are that improvement from IMA is related to the site of the lesion (anterior lesions faring better); the evolution of IMA is related more to the evolution of oral apraxia than to the evolution of other neuropsychological variables; and the presence of a second lesion in the right hemisphere did not have the negative influence on recovery that might have been expected.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1987

Ideomotor apraxia: a study of initial severity.

This study investigated whether there are predictors for initial severity of ideomotor apraxia (IMA) in focal left-hemisphere vascular patients. One hundred and twenty-nine subjects were examined between 15 and 30 days post-onset. Twenty-five patients with bilateral lesions were also studied in order to delineate the role of the right hemisphere. Other neuropsychological variables (i.e., token test, progressive matrices and oral apraxia scores) and size of the lesion were included in the experimental design. The main results were that a) token test, progressive matrices, oral apraxia scores, and lesion size correlate significantly with IMA, and b) that the presence of a second lesion in the right hemisphere is not found to have any significant effect on initial severity of IMA.

Aged↗
PubMed1986

Three-year neuropsychological follow-up of patients with reversible ischemic attacks.

A short neuropsychological test battery designed to measure language, memory and visuospatial abilities was administered to 217 patients with reversible ischemic attacks. Patients were tested twice: the first time more than one month, but less than one year, from the last ischemic episode, and the second time three years later. A comparison between the first and the second testing session did not disclose any significant worsening. The degree of atherosclerosis and the occurrence of further ischemic episodes during the follow-up period were found to be unrelated to change in performance at the test battery. These results seems to challenge the hypothesis that multi-infarct dementia may follow apparently reversible, or even clinically silent, ischemic episodes.

Follow-Up Studies↗
PubMed1986

Neuropsychological measures in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their relationship with CT scan-assessed cerebral atrophy.

Twenty-one male patients affected by ALS have been given a short neuropsychological battery and the results have been compared with those obtained by 21 male subjects affected by other non-dementing neurological diseases. Only two ALS patients had definitely low scores on WAIS (performance scale) and on learning tasks, both verbal and spatial, but the ALS group did not differ, on the whole, from the controls. No relationship was observed between cognitive impairment and cerebral atrophy assessed by computerized tomography. The conclusion is suggested that the cognitive impairment in ALS be a discrete, seldom occurring event.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Discrimination between senile dementia Alzheimer type patients and -education matched normal controls by means of a 6-test set.

Discrimination between senile dementia Alzheimer type (SDAT) patients (N = 30) and Normal Controls (N = 60) by means of a 6-test set was assessed. Performances on Word Fluency (FL), Memory for Prose (PM) and Finger Agnosia (FA) nearly exhaust the discriminant power of the whole battery, including Constructional Apraxia (CA), Token Test (TT) and Weigl's Sorting Test (WT). The battery, however, leaves some facets of the difference between SDAT patients and Controls unexplored, misclassifying almost 20% of the SDAT patients and 10% of the Controls. We emphasize the role of discriminant analysis in the evaluation of any neuropsychological battery of tests which has to be used for diagnostic purposes.

Aged↗
PubMed1985

Different basic components in the performance of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics on the Colour-Figure Matching Test.

It is known that focal damage of the left hemisphere causes poor performances in a number of tasks devoid of overt verbal connotation, often referred to as "non-verbal intelligence", "association" or "abstract attitude" tasks. However, it is not clear whether the existence of a unitary basic functional defect to account for the faulty performances outlined above can be supposed. In this investigation we have compared the behaviour of left-hemisphere damaged patients grouped according to aphasia type and have studied the extent to which two different, widely used tests of this supposed "non-verbal basic ability" (i.e. the Weigl Sorting Test and the Raven Progressive Matrices) overlap in their predictive power of the performance of a non-verbal association task, i.e. the Colour-Figure Matching Test. Notwithstanding the identical level of performance in the three tests between groups having different aphasia types, a clear-cut dissociation was found between Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics; in the former group the Colour-Figure Matching Test was highly correlated only with Weigl Sorting Test and in the latter only with Progressive Matrices. The conclusions are that in this case the breakdown of non-verbal basic resources does not coincide in patients with different types of aphasia, and the hypothesis of the existence of a unitary basic defect caused by left hemisphere damage is not in line with our findings.

Aphasia↗
PubMed1985

Crossed aphasia: one or more syndromes?

Seven strongly right-handed patients developed aphasia following a right hemisphere vascular lesion documented by computerized tomography. One patient had a severe unilateral neglect, indication of its presence were evident in three and absent in three patients. The Token Test scores were significantly higher than in matched controls. Two patients had Broca aphasia, four had Wernicke aphasia and one had agraphia. The correlation between type of aphasia and locus of lesion was not much different from that normally found in standard left hemisphere brain damaged aphasics.

Aphasia↗
PubMed1985

Two basic properties of space representation in the brain: evidence from unilateral neglect.

It is argued, on the grounds of earlier findings, that the neural substrate of egocentric space representation has analogue (non-symbolic) topo-topical properties. It is then argued from fresh evidence that space representation appears to be anchored to the sagittal midplane of the trunk and to the line of sight. A tentative reduction of the suggested properties of space representation to the neuro-physiological level is briefly outlined.

Brain↗
PubMed1985

Spared musical abilities in a conductor with global aphasia and ideomotor apraxia.

A conductor suddenly developed global aphasia and severe ideomotor apraxia as a result of an infarct in the territory of the left middle cerebral artery. Although aphasia and apraxia remained unchanged during the following six years, his musical capacities were largely spared and he was still able to conduct. This case provides some evidence in favour of right hemisphere dominance for music.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Interaction between lateralization of memory and probe stimulus in the recognition of verbal and spatial visual stimuli.

The aim of the study was to sort out whether in normal subjects hemispheric asymmetries in memory encoding arise at the input or at the recognition stage of verbal (diagrams of letters) and spatial patterns (diagrams of stars) in a 3 X 3 virtual matrix. Target and probe stimuli were tachistoscopically presented to the same or the opposite hemisphere. Letters, but not stars, were better recognized in a crossed condition in which targets were flashed to the right and probes to the left hemisphere. The finding suggests that the right hemisphere (but not the left) is capable of adding specific, possibly mnestic, resources to the first stage of letter processing.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Is memory impairment greater than cognitive impairment in moderate chronic alcoholics?

The aims of the research were to test (i) whether moderate chronic alcoholics (A/pts) perform worse than non teetotaler controls (C/pts) either on memory or on intelligence tasks or on both, and (ii) whether there was a significant difference between verbal and spatial memory scores pointing to the claimed prevailing right hemisphere sensitivity to alcohol abuse. Great care was taken in selecting C/pts not to exaggerate by sample biasing the psychological effects of alcoholism. Intelligence was tested by means of verbal and performance Wechsler-Bellevue IQ and Raven PM47; memory was tested by means of serial immediate memory span and learning by means of verbal and spatial devices. The results support the conclusion that chronic wine alcoholism in a band of drinkers with lowish educational background and very set drinking habits impairs memory and intelligence without any significant difference. Moreover there is no evidence of a prevalent right hemisphere sensitivity to chronic alcohol addiction.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Pattern of recovery of oral and written expression and comprehension in aphasic patients.

Three hundred and eighty-eight aphasic patients (250 rehabilitated and 138 non-rehabilitated) were subjected to a study whose aim was to analyze the relationship between recovery in 4 specific language skills: oral and written expression and comprehension. By means of Cohen's K coefficient of agreement we sought to ascertain whether recovery of one out of these language skills significantly affected recovery of the remaining 3 language modalities. In rehabilitated patients recovery of oral ad written comprehension and expression always turned out to be linked; in non-rehabilitated patients oral comprehension recovery was not associated with recovery of oral expression, reading and writing. Regarding the evolution of aphasia type, none of the experimental subjects changed from a fluent to a non-fluent form of aphasia.

Agraphia↗
PubMed1982

Sex differences in recovery from aphasia.

The influence of sex on recovery from aphasia was investigated for oral expression and auditory verbal comprehension separately in 264 males and 121 females subdivided according to presence/absence of rehabilitation. The conclusions were that females recover significantly better than males in oral expression, but not in auditory verbal comprehension. These results are discussed with regard to the possible existence of a different cerebral organization in males and females.

Aphasia↗