The Visual Scanning Test: a Neuropsychological Tool to Assess Extrapersonal Visual Unilateral Spatial Neglect (VST)

May 6, 2019 updated by: Francesca Cecchi, Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus
Presentation and standardization on a normative sample of a new neuropsychological tool to provide a quantitative assessment of visual unilateral spatial neglect in the extrapersonal portion of space.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) represents one of the most frequent and disabling neuropsychological consequences of acute brain damage. Patients with USN show an impaired ability to perceive sensory events and to perform actions in the contralesional side of the space, in absence of a lower-level sensory or motor deficit. Several studies found that controlesional USN is more frequent and more severe in right than left parietal damage and due to its prominent impairment, USN has broadly been studied in the visual modality (VUSN). VUSN can affect patient's own contralesional body (personal neglect), into the near space within reaching distance (peripersonal) or space beyond reaching distance (far extrapersonal space). Those portions of space may dissociate and patient may show extrapersonal VUSN without alterations on the other portions of space (i.e. personal and peripersonal). Traditional paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests are useful and widely used to evaluate VUSN, even if several of them can provide an assessment of peripersonal VUSN. In fact, this portion of space can be assessed through line bisection, cancellation, or copy tasks which are normally completed within reaching distance. Instead, personal and extrapersonal neglect are less easily evaluated: this lack of assessment tools may lead to lower detection rates for USN in patients in clinical setting and lead to relevant clinical implications. Finally, paper-and-pencil tests can detect only a moderate or even severe deficit due to VUSN but not a mild impairment and they are not informative about patients' disability in natural setting. According to this limitations of traditional paper-and-pencil tests, several studies have shown that computerized reaction time tasks are more sensitive in the detection of lateralized spatial attention deficits in patients with mild or remitted VUSN. The primary aim of this study was to present and standardize a new neuropsychological tool to provide a quantitative assessment of VUSN in the extrapersonal portion of space.

The Visual Scanning Test (VST) involved a visual search for a target between similar visual distractors, projected in the far space, so as to simulate the search within a visual field. It is overall composed by four trials, each trial contained 20 cases and made up by 20 stimuli. On about the 80% of cases, the test provided the presence of target in the left, center or in right hemispace. In the remaining 20% of cases, the test provided the presence of a catch trial (absence of the target), to assess the presence of frontal disturbances or malingering. The test is constructed according to an increasing attentional load for the target on the left-hemispace. Participants, sitting in front a blank wall, were required to actively and free explore the projected visual field to search for the visual target, naming its identification (saying YES or NO). During the task, the examiner annotated the reaction times and the errors. From these data it was possible to get some informative indexes regarding the reaction times, the accuracy and the implicit learning of the progressive shift to the left of the target and the possible presence of asymmetry in the visual exploration.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

86

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

16 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

- healthy subjects of full age.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • past or present neurological diseases;
  • past or present psychiatric diseases;
  • presence of visual disturbances.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Treatment
Healthy participants were administered the Visual Scanning Test
Diagnostic test: Visual Scanning Test
The Visual Scanning Test (VST) involved a visual search for a target between similar visual distractors, projected in the far space, so as to simulate the search within a visual field. It is overall composed by four trials, each trial contained 20 cases and made up by 20 stimuli. On about the 80% of cases, the test provided the presence of target in the left, center or in right hemispace. In the remaining 20% of cases, the test provided the presence of a catch trial (absence of the target), to assess the presence of frontal disturbances or malingering. The test is constructed according to an increasing attentional load for the target on the left-hemispace. Participants, sitting in front a blank wall, were required to actively and free explore the projected visual field to search for the visual target, naming its identification (saying YES or NO). During the task, the examiner annotated the reaction times and the errors.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Scores of clinical indexes due to the accuracy and the reaction times
Time Frame: Clinical indexes were obtained after completing th edata collecyion, which lasted two years
From the obtained data it was possible to get some informative indexes regarding the reaction times, the accuracy and the implicit learning of the progressive shift to the left of the target and the possible presence of asymmetry in the visual exploration.
Clinical indexes were obtained after completing th edata collecyion, which lasted two years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus

Collaborators

Rehabilitation Istitute Santa Maria Bambina
Clinical Center Agoretis

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 2, 2015

Primary Completion (Actual)

January 15, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

January 9, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 26, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 26, 2019

First Posted (Actual)

April 30, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 7, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 6, 2019

Last Verified

May 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRCCSdongnocchi

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

No

IPD Plan Description

We didn't plan to share these data

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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