The Fluff test: Improved scoring system to account for different degrees of contralesional and ipsilesional personal neglect in brain-damaged patients

Cocchini, Gianna and Beschin, Nicoletta. 2022. The Fluff test: Improved scoring system to account for different degrees of contralesional and ipsilesional personal neglect in brain-damaged patients. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 32(1), pp. 69-83. ISSN 0960-2011 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

The Fluff test is a simple test to assess evidence of personal neglect (PN) in brain damaged patients. While blindfolded, patients are asked to remove targets previously attached on their body and the number of targets detached provides information about possible spatial bias. This test has been widely used for clinical and research purposes. However, the current scoring system presents some limitations, which make difficult to interpret patients’ performance in terms of both contralalesional and ipsilesional PN when they omit targets on the ipsilesional side. Moreover, it does not consider possible confounding variables, such as non-spatial cognitive deficits or lack of compliance that may affect patients’ performance and lead to incorrect diagnosis. The present paper proposes a new scoring method overcoming the limitations mentioned above and it analyses data from a large sample of 243 brain damaged patients. Findings showed that contralesional PN was significantly more severe, but not more frequent, following right (31%) than left (21%) brain damage. We also found evidence of left ipsilesional PN and cases of potential mis-diagnosis that would have passed unnoticed with the original scoring system. The new scoring method allows to identify different degrees of contralesional and ipsilesional PN and potential confounding variable.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2020.1797828

Keywords:

Personal neglect, hemispatial neglect, Fluff test, assessment, brain damage, stroke

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Psychology > Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture (CCCC)

Dates:

DateEvent
6 July 2020Accepted
29 July 2020Published Online
2022Published

Item ID:

28977

Date Deposited:

08 Jul 2020 09:25

Last Modified:

23 Dec 2021 03:54

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28977

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