UMass Chan Medical School researchers affiliated with the VA Central Western Massachusetts Health Care System are leading a $1.9 million multi-site Veterans Affairs merit review award study to close the gap in rehabilitation for patients with a disabling condition known as spatial neglect following right brain stroke. The study uses prism adaptation therapy to help patients regain visual-motor skills, and aims to identify through brain imaging which patients might respond best to prism adaptation therapy.
Spatial neglect is an imbalance in a person’s ability to know where they are in three-dimensional space, causing functional disability, explained principal investigator A.M. Barrett, MD, chair and professor of neurology. Even simple movements, like putting on and taking off glasses, require us to aim based on the three-dimensional shape of the object, our body and the space around us.
In most people, the right brain directs spatial function, while the left brain is dominant for language. So right brain spatial neglect can prevent people from dressing, eating, being mobile or otherwise functioning independently.
