A case of Balint syndrome: the importance of a specific neuropsychological appraisal in the clinical diagnosis of visuospatial disorders

Abstract

Balint syndrome is characterized by a severe disturbance of visual spatial analysis including impaired oculomotor behaviour, optic ataxia, and simultanagnosia. The complete syndrome is relatively rare, and partial syndromes have been reported more frequently. The present study aims to describe a case of Balint syndrome who displayed all the three main neuropsychological features as a consequence of infarction in the watershed between the anterior and posterior cerebral artery territories. In this case report three days post stroke the clinical assessment showed a severe impairment in several visual spatial tasks (e.g. reading, writing, description of a visual scene, voluntary gaze-shift). Twelve weeks post-stroke the clinical assessment showed a significant improvement in reading, writing, as well as in verbal delayed recall processes, but only a mild improvement in visual spatial tasks like the description of a complex visual scene was registered. Balint’s syndrome is rare and is not easy to assess with standard clinical tools. The classical neurological examination evaluates in detail the senses, motility, balance, and to some extent language, but, sometimes, it is much less concerned with cognitive functions. The case discussed here is a good example of the need to emphasize that an acutely ill patient should also be accurately evaluated for the presence of cognitive and behavioural disturbances.

Keywords

• Balint
• Ocular apraxia
• Optic ataxia
• Simultanagnosia
• Visuospatial abilities
• Stroke