Qualitative assessment for extrapersonal neglect in patients with stroke using a virtual reality system task

Abstract

We investigated whether our virtual reality (VR) system task could detect extrapersonal neglect in patients with stroke and attempted to determine which targets were easiest/most difficult to detect for patients with unilateral spatial neglect. Thirty-six participants completed the VR task (neglect [NEG] group, n = 10; elderly healthy [EH] group, n = 11; and young healthy [YH] group, n = 15). The VR task consisted of 18 targets, each with different characteristics (front/side; right/left/both sides; static/dynamic/irregular). Participants verbally reported the detection of targets during the task. Detection percentages were significantly lower in the NEG group than in the EH and YH groups (p < 0.001). Difficult stimulations for the NEG group to detect in the leftward detection were a Signal (front/left side/static; detection percentage: NEG = 0%, EH = 100%), a Car (side/left side/static; detection percentage: NEG = 10.0%, EH = 100%), and Cars (side/both sides/static; detection percentage: NEG = 20.0%, EH = 100%). The easiest stimulation for the NEG group to detect was a Human (front/left side/static; detection percentage: NEG = 80.0%, EH = 100%). In conclusion, our VR task can be used to confirm extrapersonal neglect in patients with stroke, and we also identified detection difficulty in the different stimulations.

Keywords

• unilateral spatial neglect
• extrapersonal neglect
• stroke
• virtual reality
• qualitative assessment