Apraxia

Definition

The inability to correctly carry out a learned, skilled motor act despite the preserved capability of the sensorimotor system to produce the intended movement.

Current Knowledge

Apraxia is thought to involve a loss of representations or the inability to adequately access representations of learned movements and motor skills in the damaged brain. This may lead to a loss of recall of the concept or configuration of the movement or the inability to transform or implement the representational knowledge of the movement into a well-coordinated, properly configured, and sequenced gesture. The diagnosis of apraxia requires the exclusion of cognitive and sensorimotor impairments that may affect the ability to carry out the motor skill, such as arousal, attention, intention, language deficits or weakness, discoordination, movement disorders, and sensory loss.

Assessment: Assessment for apraxia involves asking a patient to carry out pantomimes of movements (e.g., “show me how you...