After a Stroke: Left-side Neglect

Mum’s right hemisphere stroke has caused complete left-side neglect. But what is left side neglect?

To say that left side neglect means you’re paralysed down your left side is to miss the bigger picture of one-side neglect. Mum isn’t just paralysed and unable to see out of her left eye. Neglect following a stroke means the brain no longer recognises that one side of the body exists.

After Mum first had her stroke, the statement, “I cannot feel my left side” was literally unthinkable because the brain didn’t know what the words “left side” meant. Mum could tell the Doctors that she felt “wrong” or “off balance” but couldn’t understand why. She would insist she could walk and was angry and frustrated that the Doctors and nurses wouldn’t let her. When asked to move her left hand or leg she would move her right. When shown her own left hand, she would say it was somebody else’s.

Because Mum hasn’t lost her cognitive powers, she quickly learned to parrot the words said to her: “I can’t feel my left side” or, more commonly, “My left side is crap” but without a real understanding of what this “left side” thing meant.

This kind of neglect is common after brain injuries and there has been quite a bit of literature on the subject. Take the very interesting book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; a book of essays on brain injuries. There’s also a slightly-related article in the Guardian – although it’s different in Mum’s case because of her left-side paralysis.

The only way to really deal with left-side neglect is to try to teach the brain that the left side exists. Sitting on Mum’s left side, asking her to look at you on her left side, giving her medications from that side, showing her the left hand and reminding her that it’s hers: all of these things help to train her brain into recognising it exists.

Thankfully, this is one part of Mum’s recovery that we’ve seen great strides in. Following her physio she’s begun to complain of pain on her left side and pins and needs in her left fingers. This is the first time I’ve been sure she’s using the term “left” and understanding it. If the brain has started to receive signals from the left side of her body then that’s an extremely positive sign.

I don’t want to give people the wrong impression here: we’re not talking about Mum being able to walk. We’re talking about the first initial signs that her left side may not be permanently paralysed and that there is some improvement in her left-side neglect.

I wanted to attach some sort of research article to this post on neglect but there’s no single source I could find quickly. It is an extremely interesting subject so please Google. Lots of resources are out there.