[Focal cerebellar lesions and psycholinguistic methods for their diagnosis]

The author depicts a psycholinguistic technique aimed at the identification in the speech of patients with impaired cerebellum of the same signs of ataxia which can be detected in their hand movements. The diagnostic significance of the technique was tested in 3 clinical groups of patients: with multiple sclerosis (Group 1), neurosurgical diseases of the cerebellum (Group 2), and with olivopontocerebellar atrophy (Group 3). The findings obtained suggest that the psycholinguistic technique may be used for the early diagnosis of neurosurgical diseases of the cerebellum, detection of residual focal lesions, diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and its individual clinical forms, as well as for the pathogenetic validation of the restorative training of patients with cerebellar dysarthria.