Comparison of the Behavioural Inattention Test and the Catherine Bergego Scale in assessment of hemispatial neglect

Abstract

The objective of the study was to correlate visual and behavioural assessments of hemispatial neglect caused by cerebrovascular accident. We assessed 17 consecutive right-hemisphere stroke patients with hemispatial neglect: the Catherine Bergego Scale (CBS) was used to evaluate neglect in spontaneous behaviour and the conventional subtests of the Behavioural Inattention Test (BIT C) were used to assess visual neglect. The proportional severity of both visual and behavioural neglect was calculated in each individual patient. Dissociations were found between mild neglect in visual screening tasks and moderate or severe neglect in behaviour, although in most patients, neglect was equally evident in both tests. Only the line bisection subtest from the BIT correlated significantly with the CBS, yet both tests showed good internal consistency. The line bisection test and several items of the CBS were especially sensitive in detecting the combination of visual field deficit and hemispatial neglect. In conclusion, we propose that visual fields should always be assessed in patients with neglect because neglect may be exacerbated by a visual field deficit and this can cause prolonged functional disability in everyday life situations. Specific rehabilitation methods might also be needed in neglect with or without hemianopia.

Functional Assessment of Spatial Neglect: A Review of the Catherine Bergego Scale and an Introduction of the Kessler Foundation Neglect Assessment Process

“…It is reported that the CBS is significantly correlated with behavioral paper-and-pencil tests for detecting spatial neglect, especially bell cancellation 30,38 , but that the CBS may be even more sensitive to neglect symptoms than paper-and-pencil tests 30,38,40 . Luukkainen-Markkula et al 39 and Goedert et al 41 also found significant correlations between items of the CBS and the conventional subtest of the Behavioral Inattention Test (BIT) 44 , which includes the widely used paper-and-pencil tasks: line crossing 45 , letter cancellation, star cancellation, figure and shape copying, line bisection, and representational drawing. Among CBS items, internal consistency was verified such that all items were correlated with one another 38,41 .…”

Do Neglect Assessments Detect Neglect Differently?

“…The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was administered to determine participants' cognitive impairment (Nasreddine et al, 2005) because cognitive impairment frequently co-occurs with neglect and is associated with more severe neglect (Linden, Samuelsson, Skoog, & Blomstrand, 2005). The MoCA includes 16 items that assess attention and concentration, executive functions, memory, language, visuoconstructional skills, conceptual thinking, calculations, and orientation (Chiti & Pantoni, 2014;Cumming, Churilov, Linden, & Bernhardt, 2013;Nasreddine et al, 2005;Toglia, Fitzgerald, O'Dell, Mastrogiovanni, & Lin, 2011).…”

Development of the Halifax Visual Scanning Test: A New Measure of Visual-Spatial Neglect for Personal, Peripersonal, and Extrapersonal Space

“…For example, previous validation work on the CBS similarly compared performance on their functional assessment for neglect in different spatial regions to the BIT (Luukkainen-Markkula, Tarkka, Pitkänen, Sivenius, & Hämäläinen, 2011). Luukkainen-Markkula and colleagues (2011) found only 5 of the 10 CBS tasks to correlate with at least 1 of the BIT tasks, despite both the BIT and CBS being established measures for neglect assessment.…”