The document discusses body scheme disturbances, which occur after damage to the parietal lobe and result in a lack of knowledge about one's own body parts and their positions. Specific manifestations mentioned include autotopagnosia (inability to identify body parts), finger agnosia (inability to name or recognize fingers), and right-left disorientation. Assessment methods are provided for each disturbance, such as production and comprehension tests for autotopagnosia, and tests of finger recognition, naming, and orientation for finger agnosia and right-left disorientation.

1. Body Scheme Disturbances
Anu Mary Kalliath
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
St. Mary’s College
Thrissur-680020
Kerala

2. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Body Scheme
Definitions
Knowledge of one's body parts and their relative positions.
Representations of the spatial relations among the parts of the
body (Zoltan, 1996)
Body Scheme Disturbances
Lack of Knowledge of one's body parts and their relative
positions.
It occurs typically after damage to the parietal lobe,
particularly its inferior part.

3. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Specific Manifestations of Body Scheme
Disturbances
Autotopagnosia : an inability to identify body parts, either on
one’s self, on the examiner or on a human picture.
Finger Agnosia: a loss of the ability to name, distinguish or
recognize fingers either on one’s self, on the examiner or on a
human picture.
Right Left disorientation: the inability to identify left and right
sides of one’s own body, and to identify the right and left sides of
a person seated opposite or in a photo or a drawing.

4. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Autotopagnosia
Lesions in the left frontal opercular and anterior/inferior
parietal opercular cortices results in impaired naming of body
parts.
Assessment
Production Tests Comprehension
Tests
Non Verbal Tests
Name own body
parts
Point to own named
body parts
Odd one out
Name examiner’s
body parts
Point to examiner’s
named body parts
Name isolated body
parts
Word – picture
matching

5. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Finger Agnosia
It is a finger localization deficit, where the individual is
typically able to use fingers for everyday life activities.
A bilateral condition in which both hands are affected and most
pronounced on examination of the middle three fingers.
Neural correlate of finger agnosia is the left parietal-occipital
dysfunction.
It is also due to an impairment of language function, in which
the patient has lost the ability to handle the symbols that related to
the fingers (Benton, 1959).

6. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Finger Agnosia Continues…
Assessment
1. Non verbal finger recognition
2. Identification of named fingers on
examiner’s hand
3. Verbal identification of finger on self and
examiner

7. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
Right – Left Disorientation (RLD)
Common neural correlate to RLD is the left parietal
dysfunction
Some degree of right- left confusion is common in normal
adults.
Left handed females show greater RL error (Harris &
Gitterman,1978)
Patients with right parietal-temporal-occipital lesions were
impaired at making RL judgments about inverted figures
(Ratcliff, 1979).
Right hemisphere damage contributes to RLD especially in
imitating tasks.

8. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
RLD Assessment
Right-Left Orientation Test (RLOT)
Orientation toward one’s own body
Orientation toward one’s own body without visual guidance
Orientation toward confronting examiner or picture
Combined Orientation toward one’s own body and
confronting person

9. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
RLD Assessment Continues…
Standardized Road- Map Test Of Direction Sense
A test or right - left orientation in extrapersonal space.
On an unmarked road map, the examiner draws a dotted pathway and
the subject is asked to tell the direction either right or left at each turn.

10. Clinical Neuropsychology,Anu Mary Kalliath,St.Mary’s College
RLD Assessment Continues…
Laterality Discrimination Test
A speeded task of laterality judgment and spatial perception
The subject is shown a card that consist of line drawings of
body parts, and has to judge whether the picture is a right or left
body part.