Apraxia post
Stroke
Paul Morris
Occupational Therapist GSTT
Overview
 Explore what apraxia is
 The parts of the brain contribute to apraxia
 How apraxia can present
 Intervention techniques
Task Performance
 All tasks require cognitive and perceptual components to
complete them
 Our ability to process the information in our environment
has a direct impact on what we can do
 Praxis is an extremely important link between brain and
behaviour. This allows us to interact with the world
Apraxia is…..
A reduced ability to interact with the environment and
physical world.
The inability to perform skilled and purposeful motor tasks
in the absence of motor deficits, paresis and paralysis.
Apraxia
 Developmental Dyspraxia
 Acquired Apraxia: Resulting from CVA, Traumatic Head
Injury, Acquired Brain Injury (hypoxia, encephalopathy
and other conditions)
 Apraxia can be thought of being able to be broken into
two distinct yet interactive components. Yet there are
many subcategories that we come across in our practice
 Ideomotor Apraxia: inability to produce the correct
movements and components of a task even though the
individual retains the concept of the task
 Ideational Apraxia: an inability to formulate plans in order
to execute tasks.
So how might these presently differently?
Ideomotor Apraxia
 Difficulty imitating common movements or gestures
 Difficulty with common tool use
 Concept remains intact, it’s the execution
 Poor control
 Plane of movement and accuracy
Ideational Apraxia
 Inappropriate tool use
 Sequence of task
 Omissions
 Perseveration
 Use of own hand as a tool
Ideomotor Apraxia
 Pre motor cortex of bilateral hemispheres
 Left inferior parietal lobe
 Corpus callosum
 Basal ganglia
 Thalamus
Ideational Apraxia
 Pre frontal and premotor cortex of bilateral hemispheres
 Left inferior parietal lobule
 Corpus callosum
Intervention Techniques
 Tactile, kinesthetic and proprioceptive input
 Simple commands
 Contextual environments
 Spontaneity
 Reduced distractions
 Goal directed
Questions?
Thank You.