Visual perceptual dysfunctions following stroke cause a high proportion of failures in activities of daily living and difficulty in learning new activities. Because these dysfunctions interfere with an individual's progress in rehabilitation, the diagnosis and remediation of visual perceptual dysfunctions are important.

The authors assessed visual perceptual dysfunctions in 40 adult stroke patients with the Presbyterian Medical Center(PMC) perception test and the Motor-Free Visual Perception Test(MVPT), and investigated the relationship of visual perceptual dysfunctions with site of lesion, side of paralysis, and initial mental state after stroke.

In addition, functional improvements were assessed by the modified Patient Evaluation Conference system(PECS) to see whether the average gain differred according to visual perceptual dysfunctions or side of paralysis. The effect of treatment was assessed also in those who received follow up testing by the MVPT.

The results are summerized as follows:

1) No significant difference was detected in the degree of visual perceptual dysfunction according to the side of paralysis and initial mental state.

2) Perceptual age was significantly lower in the patients who had lesion in the cerebral hemisphere than in those with lesions in other locations.

3) Right hemiplegic patients showed higher average gain in modified PECS scores than left hemiplegics.

4) The patients with severe visual perceptual dysfunction by the PMC perception test showed higher average gain in modified PECS scores than did patients with mild dysfunction.

5) There was improvement in perceptual age of 2.5 years on the average in 5 left hemiplegic patients who received an average of 41.4 days of perceptual treatment.