Sensory alien hand syndrome: case report and review of the literature

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1998 Sep;65(3):366-9. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.65.3.366.

Abstract

An 81 year old right handed woman developed a left alien hand syndrome characterised by involuntary movements of choking and hitting the face, neck, and shoulder. The patient showed multiple disorders of primary sensation, sensory processing, hemispatial attention, and visual association, as well as a combination of sensory, optic, and cerebellar ataxia (triple ataxia) of the left arm in the absence of motor neglect or hemiparesis. Imaging studies disclosed subacute infarction in the right thalamus, hippocampus, inferior temporal lobes, splenium of corpus callosum, and occipital lobe due to right posterior cerebral artery occlusion. This rare syndrome should be considered as a "sensory" or "posterior" form of the alien hand syndrome, to be distinguished from the "motor" or "anterior" form described more commonly.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Awareness / physiology*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Cerebral Infarction / diagnosis*
  • Cerebral Infarction / physiopathology
  • Dominance, Cerebral / physiology
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality / physiology*
  • Hand / innervation*
  • Hemiplegia / diagnosis*
  • Hemiplegia / physiopathology
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Motor Activity / physiology*
  • Neurologic Examination
  • Sensation Disorders / diagnosis
  • Sensation Disorders / physiopathology
  • Tomography, Emission-Computed