The time course of visual hemi-inattention

Twenty right brain-damaged patients and two left brain-damaged patients who showed neglect in the early stage of a stroke were reexamined at a mean time of 10.5 months. In four patients neglect was still as severe as on the initial examination and visual scanning was limited to the right space or even to its rightmost portion. Available CT scan findings suggest that in some patients thalamic lesions may play a critical role in the persistence of neglect. All the other patients improved with passage of time, but minor signs of hemi-inattention could still be demonstrated in the great majority of them.