Anosognosia

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Anosognosia
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Specialty Psychiatry, Neurology

Anosognosia is a condition in which a person with a disability is cognitively unaware of having it due to an underlying physical condition. Anosognosia results from physiological damage to brain structures, typically to the parietal lobe or a diffuse lesion on the fronto-temporal-parietal area in the right hemisphere, [1] [2] [3] and is thus a neuropsychiatric disorder. A deficit of self-awareness, the term was first coined by the neurologist Joseph Babinski in 1914, in order to describe the unawareness of hemiplegia. [4] [5]

Contents

Phenomenologically, anosognosia has similarities to denial, which is a psychological defense mechanism; attempts have been made at a unified explanation. [6]

Anosognosia is sometimes accompanied by asomatognosia, a form of neglect in which patients deny ownership of body parts such as their limbs. The name derives from Ancient Greek: ἀ-, a- ('without'), νόσος, nosos ('disease'), and γνῶσις, gnōsis ('knowledge'). [5] It is considered a disorder that makes the treatment of the patient more difficult, since it may affect negatively the therapeutic relationship. [7]

Causes

Relatively little has been discovered about the cause of the condition since its initial identification. Recent empirical studies tend to consider anosognosia a multi-componential syndrome or multi-faceted phenomenon. That is, it can be manifested by failure to be aware of a number of specific deficits, including motor (hemiplegia), sensory (hemianaesthesia, hemianopia), spatial (unilateral neglect), memory (dementia), and language (receptive aphasia) due to impairment of anatomo-functionally discrete monitoring systems. [1] [2] [8]

Anosognosia is relatively common following different causes of brain injury, such as stroke and traumatic brain injury; for example, anosognosia for hemiparesis (weakness of one side of the body) with onset of acute stroke is estimated at between 10% and 18%. [9] However, it can appear to occur in conjunction with virtually any neurological impairment. It is more frequent in the acute than in the chronic phase and more prominent for assessment in the cases with right hemispheric lesions than with the left. [10] Anosognosia is not related to global mental confusion, cognitive flexibility, other major intellectual disturbances, or mere sensory/perceptual deficits.[ citation needed ]

The condition does not seem to be directly related to sensory loss but is thought to be caused by damage to higher level neurocognitive processes that are involved in integrating sensory information with processes that support spatial or bodily representations (including the somatosensory system). Anosognosia is thought to be related to unilateral neglect, a condition often found after damage to the non-dominant (usually the right [11] ) hemisphere of the cerebral cortex in which people seem unable to attend to, or sometimes comprehend, anything on a certain side of their body [12] (usually the left).

Anosognosia can be selective in that an affected person with multiple impairments may seem unaware of only one handicap, while appearing to be fully aware of any others. [13] This is consistent with the idea that the source of the problem relates to spatial representation of the body. For example, anosognosia for hemiplegia may occur with or without intact awareness of visuo-spatial unilateral neglect. This phenomenon of double dissociation can be an indicator of domain-specific disorders of awareness modules, meaning that in anosognosia, brain damage can selectively impact the self-monitoring process of one specific physical or cognitive function rather than a spatial location of the body. [1] [2] [14]

There are also studies showing that the maneuver of vestibular stimulation could temporarily improve both the syndrome of spatial unilateral neglect and of anosognosia for left hemiplegia. Combining the findings of hemispheric asymmetry to the right, association with spatial unilateral neglect, and the temporal improvement on both syndromes, it is suggested there can be a spatial component underlying the mechanism of anosognosia for motor weakness and that neural processes could be modulated similarly. [2] There were some cases of anosognosia for right hemiplegia after left hemisphere damage, but the frequency of this type of anosognosia has not been estimated. [1]

Anosognosia may occur as part of receptive aphasia, a language disorder that causes poor comprehension of speech and the production of fluent but incomprehensible sentences. A patient with receptive aphasia cannot correct his own phonetics errors and shows "anger and disappointment with the person with whom s/he is speaking because that person fails to understand her/him". This may be a result of brain damage to the posterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus, believed to contain representations of word sounds. With those representations significantly distorted, patients with receptive aphasia are unable to monitor their mistakes. [4] Other patients with receptive aphasia are fully aware of their condition and speech inhibitions, but cannot monitor their condition, which is not the same as anosognosia and therefore cannot explain the occurrence of neologistic jargon. [15]

Psychiatry

Although largely used to describe unawareness of impairment after brain injury or stroke, the term "anosognosia" is occasionally used to describe the lack of insight shown by some people with anorexia nervosa. [16] They do not seem to recognize that they have a mental illness. There is evidence that anosognosia related to schizophrenia may be the result of frontal lobe damage. [17]

Diagnosis

Clinically, anosognosia is often assessed by giving patients an anosognosia questionnaire in order to assess their metacognitive knowledge of deficits. However, neither of the existing questionnaires applied in the clinics are designed thoroughly for evaluating the multidimensional nature of this clinical phenomenon; nor are the responses obtained via offline questionnaire capable of revealing the discrepancy of awareness observed from their online task performance. [10] [18] The discrepancy is noticed when patients showed no awareness of their deficits from the offline responses to the questionnaire but demonstrated reluctance or verbal circumlocution when asked to perform an online task. For example, patients with anosognosia for hemiplegia may find excuses not to perform a bimanual task even though they do not admit it is because of their paralyzed arms. [18]

A similar situation can happen to patients with anosognosia for cognitive deficits after traumatic brain injury when monitoring their errors during the tasks regarding their memory and attention (online emergent awareness) and when predicting their performance right before the same tasks (online anticipatory awareness). [19] It can also occur among patients with dementia and anosognosia for memory deficit when prompted with dementia-related words, showing possible pre-attentive processing and implicit knowledge of their memory problems. [20] Patients with anosognosia may also overestimate their performance when asked in first-person formed questions but not from a third-person perspective when the questions referring to others. [1] [3] [18]

When assessing the causes of anosognosia within stroke patients, CT scans have been used to assess where the greatest amount of damage is found within the various areas of the brain. Stroke patients with mild and severe levels of anosognosia (determined by response to an anosognosia questionnaire) have been linked to lesions within the temporoparietal and thalamic regions, when compared to those who experience moderate anosognosia, or none at all. [21] In contrast, after a stroke, people with moderate anosognosia have a higher frequency of lesions involving the basal ganglia, compared to those with mild or severe anosognosia. [21]

Treatment

In regard to anosognosia for neurological patients, no long-term treatments exist. As with unilateral neglect, caloric reflex testing (squirting ice cold water into the left ear) is known to temporarily ameliorate unawareness of impairment. It is not entirely clear how this works, although it is thought that the unconscious shift of attention or focus caused by the intense stimulation of the vestibular system temporarily influences awareness. Most cases of anosognosia appear to simply disappear over time, while other cases can last indefinitely. Normally, long-term cases are treated with cognitive therapy to train patients to adjust for their inoperable limbs (though it is believed that these patients still are not "aware" of their disability). Another commonly used method is the use of feedback — comparing clients' self-predicted performance with their actual performance on a task in an attempt to improve insight. [22]

Neurorehabilitation is difficult because, as anosognosia impairs the patient's desire to seek medical aid, it may also impair their ability to seek rehabilitation. [23] A lack of awareness of the deficit makes cooperative, mindful work with a therapist difficult. In the acute phase, very little can be done to improve their awareness, but during this time, it is important for the therapist to build a therapeutic alliance with patients by entering their phenomenological field and reducing their frustration and confusion. Since severity changes over time, no single method of treatment or rehabilitation has emerged or will likely emerge. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aphasia</span> Inability to comprehend or formulate language

In aphasia, a person may be unable to comprehend or unable to formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in the Global North. Aphasia can also be the result of brain tumors, epilepsy, autoimmune neurological diseases, brain infections, or neurodegenerative diseases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Expressive aphasia</span> Language disorder involving inability to produce language

Expressive aphasia, also known as Broca's aphasia, is a type of aphasia characterized by partial loss of the ability to produce language, although comprehension generally remains intact. A person with expressive aphasia will exhibit effortful speech. Speech generally includes important content words but leaves out function words that have more grammatical significance than physical meaning, such as prepositions and articles. This is known as "telegraphic speech". The person's intended message may still be understood, but their sentence will not be grammatically correct. In very severe forms of expressive aphasia, a person may only speak using single word utterances. Typically, comprehension is mildly to moderately impaired in expressive aphasia due to difficulty understanding complex grammar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Receptive aphasia</span> Language disorder involving inability to understand language

Wernicke's aphasia, also known as receptive aphasia, sensory aphasia, fluent aphasia, or posterior aphasia, is a type of aphasia in which individuals have difficulty understanding written and spoken language. Patients with Wernicke's aphasia demonstrate fluent speech, which is characterized by typical speech rate, intact syntactic abilities and effortless speech output. Writing often reflects speech in that it tends to lack content or meaning. In most cases, motor deficits do not occur in individuals with Wernicke's aphasia. Therefore, they may produce a large amount of speech without much meaning. Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia are typically unaware of their errors in speech and do not realize their speech may lack meaning. They typically remain unaware of even their most profound language deficits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnosia</span> Medical condition

Agnosia is the inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually associated with brain injury or neurological illness, particularly after damage to the occipitotemporal border, which is part of the ventral stream. Agnosia only affects a single modality, such as vision or hearing. More recently, a top-down interruption is considered to cause the disturbance of handling perceptual information.

Agraphia is an acquired neurological disorder causing a loss in the ability to communicate through writing, either due to some form of motor dysfunction or an inability to spell. The loss of writing ability may present with other language or neurological disorders; disorders appearing commonly with agraphia are alexia, aphasia, dysarthria, agnosia, acalculia and apraxia. The study of individuals with agraphia may provide more information about the pathways involved in writing, both language related and motoric. Agraphia cannot be directly treated, but individuals can learn techniques to help regain and rehabilitate some of their previous writing abilities. These techniques differ depending on the type of agraphia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parietal lobe</span> Part of the brain responsible for sensory input and some language processing

The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wernicke's area</span> Speech comprehension region in the dominant hemisphere of the hominid brain

Wernicke's area, also called Wernicke's speech area, is one of the two parts of the cerebral cortex that are linked to speech, the other being Broca's area. It is involved in the comprehension of written and spoken language, in contrast to Broca's area, which is primarily involved in the production of language. It is traditionally thought to reside in Brodmann area 22, which is located in the superior temporal gyrus in the dominant cerebral hemisphere, which is the left hemisphere in about 95% of right-handed individuals and 70% of left-handed individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hemispatial neglect</span> Medical condition

Hemispatial neglect is a neuropsychological condition in which, after damage to one hemisphere of the brain, a deficit in attention and awareness towards the side of space opposite brain damage is observed. It is defined by the inability of a person to process and perceive stimuli towards the contralesional side of the body or environment. Hemispatial neglect is very commonly contralateral to the damaged hemisphere, but instances of ipsilesional neglect have been reported.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global aphasia</span> Medical condition

Global aphasia is a severe form of nonfluent aphasia, caused by damage to the left side of the brain, that affects receptive and expressive language skills as well as auditory and visual comprehension. Acquired impairments of communicative abilities are present across all language modalities, impacting language production, comprehension, and repetition. Patients with global aphasia may be able to verbalize a few short utterances and use non-word neologisms, but their overall production ability is limited. Their ability to repeat words, utterances, or phrases is also affected. Due to the preservation of the right hemisphere, an individual with global aphasia may still be able to express themselves through facial expressions, gestures, and intonation. This type of aphasia often results from a large lesion of the left perisylvian cortex. The lesion is caused by an occlusion of the left middle cerebral artery and is associated with damage to Broca's area, Wernicke's area, and insular regions which are associated with aspects of language.

Simultanagnosia is a rare neurological disorder characterized by the inability of an individual to perceive more than a single object at a time. This type of visual attention problem is one of three major components of Bálint's syndrome, an uncommon and incompletely understood variety of severe neuropsychological impairments involving space representation. The term "simultanagnosia" was first coined in 1924 by Wolpert to describe a condition where the affected individual could see individual details of a complex scene but failed to grasp the overall meaning of the image.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Associative visual agnosia</span> Medical condition

Associative visual agnosia is a form of visual agnosia. It is an impairment in recognition or assigning meaning to a stimulus that is accurately perceived and not associated with a generalized deficit in intelligence, memory, language or attention. The disorder appears to be very uncommon in a "pure" or uncomplicated form and is usually accompanied by other complex neuropsychological problems due to the nature of the etiology. Affected individuals can accurately distinguish the object, as demonstrated by the ability to draw a picture of it or categorize accurately, yet they are unable to identify the object, its features or its functions.

Somatoparaphrenia is a type of monothematic delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one's body. Even if provided with undeniable proof that the limb belongs to and is attached to their own body, the patient produces elaborate confabulations about whose limb it really is or how the limb ended up on their body. In some cases, delusions become so elaborate that a limb may be treated and cared for as if it were a separate being.

Anosodiaphoria is a condition in which a person who has a brain injury seems indifferent to the existence of their impairment. Anosodiaphoria is specifically used in association with indifference to paralysis. It is a somatosensory agnosia, or a sign of neglect syndrome. It might be specifically associated with defective functioning of the frontal lobe of the right hemisphere.

Auditory agnosia is a form of agnosia that manifests itself primarily in the inability to recognize or differentiate between sounds. It is not a defect of the ear or "hearing", but rather a neurological inability of the brain to process sound meaning. While auditory agnosia impairs the understanding of sounds, other abilities such as reading, writing, and speaking are not hindered. It is caused by bilateral damage to the anterior superior temporal gyrus, which is part of the auditory pathway responsible for sound recognition, the auditory "what" pathway.

Anton syndrome, also known as Anton-Babinski syndrome and visual anosognosia, is a rare symptom of brain damage occurring in the occipital lobe. Those who have it are cortically blind, but affirm, often quite adamantly and in the face of clear evidence of their blindness, that they are capable of seeing. Failing to accept being blind, people with Anton syndrome dismiss evidence of their condition and employ confabulation to fill in the missing sensory input. It is named after the neurologist Gabriel Anton. Only 28 cases have been published.

Extinction is a neurological disorder that impairs the ability to perceive multiple stimuli of the same type simultaneously. Extinction is usually caused by damage resulting in lesions on one side of the brain. Those who are affected by extinction have a lack of awareness in the contralesional side of space and a loss of exploratory search and other actions normally directed toward that side.

Amorphosynthesis, also called a hemi-sensory deficit, is a neuropsychological condition in which a patient experiences unilateral inattention to sensory input. This phenomenon is frequently associated with damage to the right cerebral hemisphere resulting in severe sensory deficits that are observed on the contralesional (left) side of the body. A right-sided deficit is less commonly observed and the effects are reported to be temporary and minor. Evidence suggests that the right cerebral hemisphere has a dominant role in attention and awareness to somatic sensations through ipsilateral and contralateral stimulation. In contrast, the left cerebral hemisphere is activated only by contralateral stimuli. Thus, the left and right cerebral hemispheres exhibit redundant processing to the right-side of the body and a lesion to the left cerebral hemisphere can be compensated by the ipsiversive processes of the right cerebral hemisphere. For this reason, right-sided amorphosynthesis is less often observed and is generally associated with bilateral lesions.

Constructional apraxia is a neurological disorder in which people are unable to perform tasks or movements even though they understand the task, are willing to complete it, and have the physical ability to perform the movements. It is characterized by an inability or difficulty to build, assemble, or draw objects. Constructional apraxia may be caused by lesions in the parietal lobe following stroke or it may serve as an indicator for Alzheimer's disease.

Topographical disorientation is the inability to orient oneself in one's surroundings, sometimes as a result of focal brain damage. This disability may result from the inability to make use of selective spatial information or to orient by means of specific cognitive strategies such as the ability to form a mental representation of the environment, also known as a cognitive map. It may be part of a syndrome known as visuospatial dysgnosia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Right hemisphere brain damage</span> Medical condition

Right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) is the result of injury to the right cerebral hemisphere. The right hemisphere of the brain coordinates tasks for functional communication, which include problem solving, memory, and reasoning. Deficits caused by right hemisphere brain damage vary depending on the location of the damage.

References

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