The Assessment of Unilateral Neglect

Unilateral neglect has become one of the most exciting topics of modern clinical neuropsychology. The presence of spatial neglect following right hemisphere damage can be diagnosed simply by observing the patient's behaviour in their everyday environment. Observing the patient during the standard examination of functional activities often reveals evidence of visual neglect. The multiplicity of tests, coupled with the fact that the selection criteria for many of the subject cohorts investigated were based solely on unilateral cerebral lesions with little control over aetiology, time post onset, and lesion size, highlights the difficulty of making comparisons between studies. Neglect probably consists of a constellation of inter-related disorders which can be difficult to disentangle. Until recently, well-standardised tests have not been available, though even as these appear there remains a need for careful neuropsychological analysis of the nature of the problems underlying lateralised attentional loss.