The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of
ideomotor apraxia on
activities of daily living and to determine if the presence of
apraxia interferes with rehabilitation. This study was conducted on 47 patients with right
hemiplegia. All the patients were assessed at their admission and discharge, respectively, for
apraxia by
Ideomotor Apraxia Test, for
daily living activities by Functional Independence Measure (FIM, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose, California, USA), for cognitive functions by Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), and for language components by Gulhane
Aphasia Test (
GAT). The effects of
apraxia presence and time course on FIM, MMSE, and
GAT scores were investigated. Presence of
apraxia was found to have significant effect on all test scores (P<0.05). Time course had the main significant effect on FIM, MMSE, and
GAT scores (P<0.05). Interaction effect of both presence of
apraxia and time course on the test scores was not significant either. In other words, apraxic and nonapraxic patients seemed to gain benefits from the
neurological rehabilitation. However, mean FIM scores of apraxic patients during discharge have failed to reach the mean FIM scores of nonapraxic patients during admission.
Apraxia is considered as an important determinant in the dependence of patients with
stroke in their
activities of daily living. For this reason, during the initial assessment of patients with right
hemiplegia,
apraxia should be tested, and the presence of
apraxia as well as its severity should be determined.