Ideatory apraxia in a left-handed patient with right-sided brain lesion

A case is described of a left-handed patient with a circumscribed right-sided posterior brain lesion, who presented with a neuro-psychological syndrome of Wernicke's aphasia, ideomotor and ideatory apraxia. The aphasia and ideomotor apraxia cleared within 10 days, while ideatory apraxia persisted. Ideatory apraxia therefore was not dependent on the language disorder, nor was it related to ideomotor apraxia. On the basis of various neuropsychological examinations, the nature of the apraxic movement disorder in this case is discussed. To our knowledge, this is the first case of ideatory apraxia with right-sided brain damage described in the literature. A particular feature of this patient is that obviously language and the motor functions underlying performance in tests for ideomotor apraxia had a bilateral hemispheric representation whereas a unilateral lesion was sufficient to bring about persistent ideatory apraxia.